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  Home :: Blog :: #DailyThanks Skip Navigation Links
#DailyThanks      
  11/28/2013 6:55:44 AM

For years now, one of my New Year resolutions has been “complain less.” Year after year, I found myself making the same resolution. This year, on January 2nd, while driving back from a family reunion, the thought came back again. Instead of making another resolution that I might break again, I was reminded of “Purpose Driven Life.” Two lines surfaced. In Day 26, Growing Through Temptation, “Every temptation is an opportunity to do good.” In Day 27, Defeating Temptation, “Refocus your attention on something else.” When applied, every time I want to complain about something is an opportunity not to complain. The key of complaining less is not trying to complain less. Rather, it is to replace complaining with something else. I knew if I set my goal too high, I would probably fail. I decided to take baby steps. I will start with 140 characters per day. However, just to keep it interesting, I will find something new each day to give thanks about. That night, I started my first #DailyThanks tweet.

In the past 11 months, I will admit that I have not been able to tweet daily. I know there were days I simply forgot. There were some really bad days that I had difficulties giving thanks. I don’t know how many of those days I had. I do know that by this time, it’s likely that I have tweeted over 300 #DailyThanks this year. Most of them were of small things. Many would have been dismissed. See, the point of the exercise is not to keep a routine, and feel guilty for missing a day or two. This exercise allowed me to count my blessings. This exercise allowed me to focus on giving thanks rather than complaining. Some of you know that this has been one of the toughest years of my life. In the same time, I can say that it’s been the year that I felt most blessed. This experience has shifted my perspective greatly. Perhaps I will find another time to share.

Through the course of this year, another major reason that kept me going is my son. Raising a 1-year-old, I quickly realized that he learns by watching us. He imitates our actions. If you didn’t know, the meaning of his middle name is to be grateful. We wanted him to grow up knowing that he is blessed, and never to take things for granted. If I was going to teach my son not to take anything for granted, I need to learn to be thankful myself. Many of you know that I’m a pretty optimistic person. It does make it easier for me to see the brighter side of things. However, I may have been born optimistic, but I was not born grateful. That part, I had to learn, and am still learning.

I invite you too, to give this a try. It doesn’t have to be #DailyThanks. It can be #WeeklyThanks or even #MonthlyThanks. The fact is, anything is more than #NoThanks. It doesn’t have to be unique from day to day. Again, it’s not about the rules of the game. It’s about counting blessings. It’s about #DailyThanks.


 
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