What has thankfulness taught you?

Every experience can teach us something. Too often we don't take the time to unpack the the insights and lessons. The world is moving fast and will not make introspection easy.

When an accident happens on the job, managers pull the team together to conduct an investigation to understand the process breakdowns that led to the issue. The organization reviews processes, and updates procedures to ensure avoiding a repeat accident in the future.

What investigations do you work through for the good things in your life? Reviewing our lives and redoubling our efforts is a common practice at the beginning of the year, birthdays, or other milestones. Understanding what is working and why it is working can be a powerful tool to enhance effectiveness and duplicate these successes to other areas of life.

What are the findings of the thankfulness investigation in your life?

Did you learn who you legitimately care for and others not as deeply as you thought?
How you define gratitude?
Who has invested in your life?
Imagined what could have happened and didn't?
Determine if you are an optimist or a pessimist?

If we don't learn the lesson, the first time we will often get more opportunities to learn the same lesson again. I have plenty of unpleasant experiences that I didn't learn the first time, and repeating the curriculum is bitter.

Let's make the most of the educational opportunity that life delivers. Choose to repeat the life-giving experiences and move on from the negative.

What has nature taught you?

One of the perks of being the random Internet punk that has the audacity to ask random inquiries on a daily basis, is that I get to dwell on the inquiry for a couple of hours while I write the posting. Your consumption of the picture, question, and 300-400 words may take a minute or two at best. If I have done my job, the inquiry will circle back around for further consideration throughout the day and prompt a bit more thinking. Hmmmmm (#selfie notice eyes looking up to the left and finger tapping on lip).

The two things nature has recently taught me is the following: 1. nature doesn't care I exist, 2. I have it better than the cicada that beat itself to death flying into my porch lights.

1. I have recently been around many objects that are old. Walking through ancient forests, strolling through old buildings and seeing 100+-year-old building footers uprooted for new construction has reminded me that I am here for a mere wisp of time. The time I spend anxious and worrying is a waste; the 500-year-old tree doesn't care and will be here long after I am gone. The anxiety my grandchildren experience while walking under its boughs will be equally insignificant.

The noticeable fingerprints of the brick maker are evidence of his existence; memorialized in the building façade for generations to admire. The bricklayers kin will point to the building and say that my grandfather built that building. The generations that review my name in the family Bible will question what comprised my dash, between birth and death. My intention is to make a greater impact than a stack of PowerPoint schedules with the milestone taco chips successively sliding to the right.

2. The 17-year cicada emerges for six weeks to sing, mate, and die. Unfortunately, the little guy buzzing around my porch lights is one of the last of the brood and is beating itself to death looking for some satisfaction. You and I have a longer life to make a positive impact on the lives of those around us. We have a greater purpose than mating, having 40 babies and dying.

Gary Vaynerchuk @garyvee recounts the fact that people are starting businesses with the phone in their pocket. The steps include; learning the technology, respecting the people at the other end, and working hard to serve these customers. By virtue of reading this post, you are better off than the cicada looking for satisfaction. Make it count.

What are your one or two lessons that nature has been kind enough to pass on to you? What were the circumstances? How else do you think you could you have learned these lessons? What lessons has nature taught those around you? 

What have you learned during the dark moments of pursuing your dream?

Each pursuit is different, but each follows the story arch of dream defined the struggle and completion. Not every dream story has a happy ending of a record IPO and the founders raising a toast on a faraway beach. The glossy pictures in the magazines make the idea of success a sure thing. After all, the rack is full of new stories each month. As the artist recounts their story; the ten years of anguished uncertainty, living in obscurity, and the families push for a 9 to 5 is all captured in a paragraph or two. 

The memes tout the benefits of the failures, setbacks and grind during the pursuit. The reality is, the trials suck. The dark days of the world not understanding what you are creating can be very dark. The creditors are calling, too much cheap pizza, the boot of responsibility to produce firmly pressed on your neck, the stress keeping the gut in a permanent knot, wreaks havoc on the mental state.

I am pursuing a vision and struggle with demands and responsibility of husband, father, and employee. At 46, have the possibilities passed me by, and I should expect to be a dust farmer, dancing on the razor's edge, for the rest of my days until the reaper comes? The unfulfilled and unexplored dreams buried with me. The resistance continues to fire the cortisol to ensure there is no relief and the dark clouds coalesce.

I

must

get

up.

I can do one more rep. I can write one more song. I can code one more string. I can submit to one more publisher. I can practice the fundamentals one more time. The injustices against the dark fingers typing the poetry will not stop the rhymes from changing the world. The slurs hurled because of my caste steel my resolve to upend the corrupt system. I must halt the cycle of drugs and poverty ingrained in the family tree, so I study another page of engineering.

What are the lessons this pursuit is teaching you and crafting your unique story of the one you greet each morning in the mirror?

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." Theodore Roosevelt