Gratitude

Gratitude. Once and a while I need to stop and get things back into perspective. I admire people who can stay in balance with home and work with little effort. I haven’t met any of them yet, but I have heard they do exist.

Where does the feeling of gratitude start? Does it begin with the feeling of being overwhelmed at work and internalizing it? But then you come home and realize that there is another life and another role to play. Greeted by people that need and depend on you. Honest people, that don’t have ulterior motives or if they do, they are easy to recognize. You want to help them, they need you.

Does gratitude start by seeing that there is no need to define yourself or tag your self-worth by your job title, your job performance or the other narrowly (8-5) defined categories that others measure you by? The key is that this is where others define you. If you accept their assessment, then you are impede the ability to feel gratitude.

I have a great job but I have a greater family. I am thankful for the opportunities at work, but I am more thankful for the opportunity to teach my children to be good, honest and ethical people. That opportunity is a challenge every day that faces me at the breakfast table and at the dinner table. It comes front and center in teaching my oldest how to drive a car and my youngest about telling the truth about what happen to their homework assignment..

It comes to me in the quiet of the morning on a Saturday. When the kids are sleeping in and my wife is reading a favorite book. Its knowing that I worked hard this week at the office, had a few bad breaks, made a few errors of judgment and probably will sound very wish-washy about a decision my manager is looking to me for direction on. Those are items I have no control over right now. In this quiet moment, with the sun in the window and the music in the background – this is it. This is where it starts to sink in: gratitude.