By Thank you all for participating in the challenges throughout the year. I had established a gratitude channel on Slack at my prior company during the pandemic. I swear it helped me and other muddle through that tumultuous time. When I retired, I was most concerned about that channel – would it continue. I have no idea if it did or not. That company has evolved and maybe gratitude is not as essential anymore in that space.
But…
For me, maintaining a gratitude journal and creating gratitude challenges is part of who I am. It keeps me focused on all the good that happens in our lives when the world/social media is telling you about all the bad.
I hope you have enjoyed the challenges and will continue to check in and take a challenge. Add a comment if it helps you to be held accountable…but I don’t want want this to become a chore. I want it to be something you enjoy doing and share with others.
This was from my gratitude calendar today:
“You practice dance steps in order to dance, and grateful living is a dance with life – life as it is, in all its ecstasies and also its agonies. Grateful living is passionate interaction with the world in all its excitement, vulnerability , and risk.
Brother David Steindl-Rast
Read more about the amazing Brother Steindl-Rast here.
So your last challenge this year is for you to practice those dance steps. Literally. While I know his quote about the similarities between learning to dance and grateful living, I want you to dance.
Dance at the grocery store; cha cha in your living room, tango at the park. You don’t have to be perfect, you just have to have fun and recognize the gift of life that you have!
To inspire you, here’s a video of me in a T-Rex costume having a dance off with Barney (aka Michele Shrout).
Happy New Year!