Today is the day after Thanksgiving. Despite the blare of television commercials and media reports from area shopping malls, we are choosing a quiet day of puttering around the house with vague plans for an afternoon movie. I am enjoying this calm and thinking about our dinner last night with friends.
At some point in our feast, between our non-traditional Thanksgiving Ceasar salad and Rita’s amazing stuffing, my partner asked “so what was the best thing about this year for everyone?” As we went around the table, each sharing a bit of gratitude and anticipation for the year ahead, I was reminded of the power of simple appreciation. The things we named—weathering a relationship rough patch and feeling hopeful; happy for abundant client work and interesting projects; excitement about creative energy in a new collaboration, and simply being able to create the space to share a decadent meal in the midst of it all—became a bit brighter in the claiming.
It is so simple, and perhaps a bit new-agey, yet has played out again and again in my experience: what we focus on becomes our reality. As we drove home, completely satiated and a bit over-indulged, I felt the opportunities and generative core each of us tapped guiding us. How nice that we take at least one day a year to slow down enough to notice this. And even nicer that we can choose to do it whenever we feel our vision of possibilities flagging.