Give Thanks Challenge

I want to issue a challenge to all card enthusiasts on the blogs. Starting today, for the next seven days-- including Thanksgiving--write a small afterword at the end of any of your blog posts that briefly describes one thing for which you are thankful and a little explanation as to why you are thankful for it. 

Happiness researcher (yes, it's a real job) Shawn Achor has found in his studies that success does not make people happy. Instead, he says that when we expect success to make us happy, we "have pushed happiness over the cognitive horizon" because there is always something more to achieve. He has found the inverse to be true: successful people aren't more happy; happy people are more successful. One thing he recommends to find happiness before success to fuel our future success is to make a gratitude journal and write in it every day for 21 days. When we do this, we are rewiring our brains to look for the positive. When we are looking more for the positive, we see a lot more positive. When we see more positive, we feel that things are going better for us and it makes us happier.

Over the course of this challenge, I'm going to attempt to write a post every day, with or without cards, just to express my gratitude and watch the effort ease the troubles in my mind. I hope many of you will join me, unless for some reason 2020 has removed all troubles from your mind anyway. The order of my gratitudes is by no means a priority list or a countdown. It will just be what is on my mind that day.

Today I wish to express gratitude to the teachers and counselors that I got to work with as I was going through school. This comes to mind today because we had counselors come into my class today to discuss a four-year plan for school as these eighth graders prepare to enter high school next year. I was reminded of a counselor I had in 8th grade who once asked me which college I wanted to attend. I said I didn't know. He responded, "I'll tell you where you're going to college: anywhere that offers you a scholarship." He then went on to explain that I had what it would take to get an academic scholarship if I worked at it through high school. From that day on, that was my high school goal: have the resume necessary to get a scholarship. It worked. I applied to three schools and two of them offered me full tuition scholarships, setting me on a great course for my adult life. Of course, this counselor wasn't alone. There are many teachers who helped me get where I am, and I'm thankful for them all.

Your turn. Write a standalone post about gratitude. Or just add gratitude at the end of any post you are already publishing. But let's show our gratitude for the great things that still exist in the world!