Day 5: Cultivate Your Gratitude

This is a two part process. First make a list of the ten things you're grateful for and then give three thank yous to three different people.

I am thankful for:

1. My children being well-behaved in public.
2. My job - as much as I complain about it, I don't have to bring it home with me, I get to go home at 3PM, I have a pretty decent amount of autonomy, and it means I don't have to be out job hunting.
3. My wife who is also my best friend.
4. My religious beliefs that keep me striving to be a better man.
5. My grandparents who left me a substantial inheritance.
6. A house that is nearly paid for (see #5).
7. My health...it could be much, much worse.
8. Being a man. Seriously. I'm glad I'm a guy.
9. My love of music and the ability to occasionally express it.
10. My love of games of all kinds. Even if I often lose.

Iacta Alea Est

The die is cast.

Graduate school is out of the picture. For now, anyways. As it turns out, my one academic reference filled out the form, but never sent in an actual letter of recommendation. Even after I followed up with him about it. Ah well...no point in getting worked up over it. Over the past month I wasn't even sure if I would have gone even if I was accepted. I really do have a good thing going here and I'm not sure I am ready to give it up for more debt and being right back where I was this time last year - unemployed with a degree that didn't make much sense.

So what is on the agenda now? Well, for starters, enjoy having a job that I don't have to bring home with me, leaving time for other stuff. Enjoy getting off work in time to be home with my kids after they get home from school. Enjoy being in a home (not an apartment) that, while it's not in the best of condition, is affordable and has a fenced back yard (in all its decade-long, neglected glory). Enjoy full medical/dental benefits. Enjoy watching a 401(k) slowly grow. Enjoy the thought that I'll be getting a few more clients at work before too long.

INVICTUS
by Wiliam Ernest Henley (1849-1903)

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

And so I am.

9 / 11

So here this country sits, five years after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I'm not really in the mood to make a big long rant about the proper role of government or anything like that. I just feel a bit sad that things like that happen and some people don't think it is noteworthy anymore or not worth dwelling on.

I disagree.

Granted, I don't think we should be thinking about it every day or living in fear/anger/whatever for the rest of our lives. We should, however, remember that that event changed (or should have anyway) everything - similar to how the bombing of Pearl Harbor changed everything for the people back then. The difference between then and now, I think, is that we have become so jaded with a life of luxury.

I mean, come on. I'm unemployed but I still have a TV (no channels, but still), a VCR/DVD player with a bunch of movies to watch, a mini-van that is completely paid for, a computer (and a half) with a connection to the Internet (a dial up one, but still), and still plenty of food in the cupboards. We live in a four-bedroom house with a fenced yard, with an air-conditioner (which I don't turn on, but still), located in a great neighborhood with an elementary school for my kids to attend only four blocks away. I have a credit card and enough of a credit limit (not to mention a great credit score) to purchase just about anything I could possibly want AND have it delivered to my home without even breaking a sweat. I have books, games, a college education, family, religious values, clean water to drink, cook, bathe, and flush my toilet with, electricity, clothes washer and dryer, a refrigerator/freezer, and green grass (sort of).

And what do people in developing and war-torn countries have? Perspective. A firmer grasp on the realities of life. A belief that they aren't "entitled" to the "basics" of everyday American life.

Whew...I really didn't think I was in a mood for a rant. At least it wasn't about government. Don't get me wrong, I love my country. I've even been debating on trying to get an officer commission in the Air Force (have to wait until March for that one though...long story). I just get pent up when I hear people whining and complaining about all the crap other people aren't doing for them - especially when they have more than I do at this point.

What ever happened to, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country"?