#365Gratitude Day 299:Using what I got is my bag

Literally even.  

This is my work bag.  You can tell because there it is sitting on my work desk. Which is at... work, right.  

I got this bag from my last job when I worked for about a year for one of the absolute shittiest conpanies I've ever worked for. They had mostly subpar benefits, as well as policies that always and without exception favored the company over the employee. 

Yay. 

However, the job itself was good, very good. It's where I learned my current technology I work with.  And they gave me this bag. 

It's not a perfect bag. The inside pocket where a laptop is supposed to go is structured awkwardly. But it turns out to work well for an iPad, a Bluetooth keyboard, and a legal pad.  It does have a very nifty outside pocket that is the PERFECT place to put a badge and lanyard.  

I started using it when my trusty LL Bean messenger bag began to give up the ghost.  

It struck me today as I was fishing my badge out from said niftypocket (sure it's a word now), that deciding to use my bag from HyperMegaCrapGoons Worldwide and figuring out how to make it work for me was a certain kind of mindfulness, an adaptive strategy that serves me well, and one which I, without noticing, employ often. 

You know, it's my bag.  

#365Gratitude Day 297:One more

So there's this thing I've been doing since I was 13 years old. One morning, in the middle of the summer, when I woke up I felt the sunlight on my face, and the very first thing I thought to myself was this:

"Oh good, another one."

That is, another day to be alive.  Another day that I don't know how things are going to work out.  Maybe it'll be an amazing day, filled with joy and passion.  Maybe it will be a terrible day, that I'll be glad to see behind me when it's done.

I didn't have any remote idea just what sort of day it was going to be. But I was sure ready to find out.

The next day, I woke up. Same deal. And literally every single one after that.

I'm really not even sure why it started.  I can't even tell you the exact date. For my own convenience, and because I love my sister, I have set the date at her birthday, July 9th.

Going by that...

From and including: Monday, July 9, 1984

To and including: Sunday, October 23, 2016

Result: 11,795 days

It is 11,795 days from the start date to the end date, end date included

Or 32 years, 3 months, 15 days including the end date

It is, without exception the single longest enduring intentional practice of my life.

Of those 11,795 days some have been truly awful. There were days I was convinced that I wasn't going to be seeing the next day. There were days I didn't WANT to see it.

But each morning even after those sorts of days, I woke up feeling differently, feeling glad for the gift that is being alive.

Recently, my friend Matti has adopted the same practice. It's got me paying attention again to the value and power of this simple little thing I do.  We've been discussing it a lot, he and I, and I told him that maybe I'd make a hashtag out of it, start intentionally spreading it to others, encouraging folks to adopt the practice.

I can't decide between #ohgoodanotherone or maybe the more pithy and mysterious #OGAO.

(That last one reminds me of Oni Hartstein's #FDAU.  Go on, you ask her about it.)

What I do know is that I'm grateful for today. I'm grateful to be here. I'm grateful you read this, and that you're around too.

Time to go see exactly what this day has for me.

#365Gratitude Day 294:It's not about me

I was talking with Squee and Moliére this morning on my morning workout walk/run/aardvark/whatever, and for some reason we got talking about modes of cognition, and the ability to take someone else's perspective.

My brother Spacey told me about this story he uses to assess his own child's perspective taking abilities.  In the story, Kid A (not the radiohead album) has a favorite quarter in a piggy bank, that he shows to Kid B, then leaves the room for some reason.  While Kid A is off someplace (maybe talking to Thom Yorke on the phone), Kid B takes the quarter and puts it in his pocket.

Here's where the cognitive development test comes in.  In the story Kid A comes back in the room, and shakes the piggy bank, it's empty.  This is the part where Spacey asks his kid where Kid A thinks the coin is.  If his kiddo says "It's in B's pocket", then they don't have perspective taking skills yet.  If they say "He doesn't know." then they can see things from Kid A's perspective.

At least, I think that's how that thing goes.  I know he reads these, so if I got it wrong, he'll let me know.

Anyhow, I'm telling Squee & Moliére about this (and just noticed that they're collectively S&M, which is really pretty funny), and it brings up this old memory of mine, from when I was five, and didn't have great perspective taking skills yet.

I was watching Romper Room, which I loved.  My mom called me for lunch.  Being the good kid I was, I obediently switched off the television, and went and had my lunch.

As soon as I was done, I rushed back to switch the television on, excited to get back to what I had been watching, to pick up right where I had left off.

Keep in mind, this was 1976.  (Yep, I'm that old.)  TV didn't do that back then.  So when I turned it back on, of course something else was on.  I want to say it was Louis Rukeyser's  Wall Street Week, or something equally horrifying, but that's maybe just me painting a terrible picture.  I was disgusted and outraged to find out that television kept on going, even when I had to pause for a sandwich.

I laugh about this memory now, but I was really upset back then, in the way that only very young children can get upset about things.  The very big lesson there, a lesson that I've been learning since is that I am not the center of the universe.  

While I was busy eating my PB&J with the crusts cut off, all sorts of other things were happening in the world, which had nothing to do with me directly.

It's still like that.  While I'm writing this post, people all over the place are eating breakfast, making coffee, calling their children to breakfast, tying shoelaces, getting cash from ATM's, fantasizing about having telekinetic powers (ok, I'm doing that one too, now.), and singing that awful Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen song under their breath.  (Sorry.)

The thing I'm grateful for about this is the perspective and peace it brings me.  With all this stuff going on, when things happen directly to me, whether good or bad, I know not to take it personally, because it's not really about me.

#365Gratitude Day 292:It could have been worse, deer

On my way home tonight, a mysterious something hit my car.  I had no idea at the time what it was.  I was driving past a not-so-nice neighborhood, near my rather nice neighborhood when the car shook and shimmied, and then I heard my driver's side rear window shatter.

At the time I thought maybe it was a ne'er-do-well trying to carjack me.  So I got the heck out of there.  After a quick mile or so drive to a gas station, I pulled in, and proceeded to calmly call the police, my family, and my insurance company.

I got a little freaked out waiting for the police to show, so I drove home to my warm, safe, house with its nice big well-lit garage.  Missy, Marybeth and I circled the car examining it, but not actually touching it, in case it had been a person trying to do something bad.  A police officer did eventually show, and took pictures.

I pointed out what looked like some whiskers stuck to the car window.

The officer agreed they looked like whiskers, not glass scratches, but said she wasn't about to touch them.  I said I would, once she'd taken pictures.  She did, and I did.  Yep.  Whiskers.  

That relieved me, since I'm generally not the sort of person who wants to hurt other people.  (Or animals, but if you gotta pick, animals are better.)  Then she drove away to check out the scene, and to the best of her determination, it was a deer.

Who, plucky bastard that he was, got up, and left the scene.  He's still out there somewhere.

Thankfully, this is more a pain in the ass than a tragedy.  I've got good car insurance, and a small deductible.  I didn't hurt any people.  Tomorrow I'm going to take my car someplace to get repaired.  It shouldn't take too long.

I'm grateful.

#365Gratitude Day 285:Help!

We all know the lyrics. ​

​Help me if you can, I'm feeling down

And I do appreciate you being 'round

Help me get my feet back on the ground

Won't you please, please help me

I like helping people.  In kink circles I do it often. But at work, nowhere nearly as much.  I have this co-worker they're struggling to learn something new. I've been giving them some guidance for a week or two. 

Honestly, it hasn't felt like it was enough help. But I was wrong.  Today we sat together, and I showed them this one particular something they had been struggling to understand. I watched as they went from bewildered to got it .

Then we had this awesome chat exchange.  

 Me: Excellent!$co-worker, I’m thrilled.  I feel like you’ve made a big jump forward.It’s starting to click for you, isn’t it?

$ co-worker: Yes, thanks to your help and guidance

Me: Awww, thanks.

Man, helping someone else is the best feeling.