Grown-up Gratitude

Do you remember when I was teaching Truman to play the Thank You Game?  Well, now I'm trying to teach myself.

I think about writing Thank You cards all the time. I do. And Sometimes I even write them. Then they don't get sent.

And while listening to a podcast on Sounds True, Dr. Srikumar Rao, said something that really hit me. "I don't have a work life or a home life. I have one life. And either it's working or it's not."

Serious. Right?

For me my life works better, feels better if I'm grateful. I can get all tied up in knots about things that don't matter. Or how someone treated me. It is not living gratefully, it's just being a 'navel gazer'. Meaning, I stare internally or within the walls of my house and not outward. Too much- Me! Me! Me!

So, there are two things that I am doing to remedy my gratefulness deficiency lately.

I am now going to carry my quick list of addresses, stamps and a few cards with me at all times. When I think of something, I'll write a note and stick a stamp on it. And put it in the mail immediately.

And second, I donated about 200 papaya colored business cards from Paper-Source to my office. And I'm encouraging our team to see the goodness in others and then write down a note to that person. I put up a little sign by our mail boxes and unveil my plan in a meeting this afternoon.

My worklife and homelife, have to overlap. Because authentic living means I'm living my ONE life.

In the words of Mary Oliver, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?"