It was a dark and stormy night. All fake novels begin with this line, but here it is a dark rainy night, a fitting companion to the dark, gray day it was from sunup to sundown. I am grateful this evening for having had clear thinking space today. Thinking is one of those occupations that doesn’t get a lot of credit. Often, we get rewarded for what we produce–physical, tangible manifestations of our creative thinking. Oh you can trace some of my thinking by looking at the papers that were scattered across my desk at work, covered with diagrams and boxes and arrows and lots and lots of text. Right now much of my thinking is confined to such diagrams and documents and plans; little of it has yet been brought to life through action and implementation. Once it begins to bear fruit, then all that thinking will have practical value.
I am grateful for the privilege of having gotten an education. For so many people, going to college is a luxury; in my family it was an expectation. Each of us–my five siblings and I–was pushed to go as far in school as circumstances allowed and not only attend college but excel in it. And as each of us would finish one degree, our parents–mom in particular–was nudging us toward the next degree. I can remember hearing my mother telling someone that after I finished my masters degree I was moving on to my PhD. I remember thinking at the time that as a struggling masters student, I had neither the will nor the desire to pursue a doctorate. But eventually, pursue it I did, and finally caught it. Of course it doesn’t necessarily mean that I am any smarter than anyone else; it simply means that I am persistent and work hard. That, and I am a good thinker.
Now one might suggest that being grateful for thinking is a little silly. To which I have a couple of responses. First: you try writing a gratitude blog for 549 days and see if occasionally you don’t find yourself expressing gratitude for something a little out of the ordinary like thinking. Second: I do not take my ability to think for granted. To be able to put thoughts and ideas together into sentences and have those sentences make sense, or to be able to conceptualize or imagine something that has yet to be created and to verbalize those things in a speech, or any of a million different combinations of thought and action is to experience the miraculous over and over again throughout the course of a single day. People who have suffered traumatic brain injuries, who wish they could effortlessly speak simple sentences, understand basic commands, or remember their children’s names, would envy me my ability to think. How many parents of differently-abled children agonize over their child’s struggle to make meaning of the most basic concepts or to verbalize their thoughts and ideas?
There are so very many aspects of life that I take for granted if I am not mindful enough to see them for the blessings they are. I am incredibly grateful for being able to move, breath, speak, act with relative ease and without having to think about it. Every once in a while I get dissatisfied with where my life is headed; there is more that I feel like I can and should be doing with myself, and I get frustrated. But then I calm myself down and realize that my task for now is to do my best thinking, put forward my best effort, give fully of myself where I am in each moment to whatever or whomever is in front of me. That is my highest purpose. So for now I will content myself with thinking about how to approach the important issues and challenges that are right in front of me and will be grateful for the opportunity. May it always be so.
