Award: Gratitude With Attitude

This Friday I was presented with another Award by Whim: The Gratitude With Attitude Award. I was a little bewildered at first, because I wasn't clear on what I might have done to deserve such a thing. In her post she cited this reason: "D.B. Echo, who is always willing to share what he is grateful for."

I guess I do, in fact, do this. But never enough.

If I were to try to enumerate a list of things I'm grateful for here, it would be woefully incomplete. But I'll try a few.

I'm grateful for my friends - both the bricks-and-mortar ones and the online ones. I learned during my period of unemployment last year just how massively dependent I am on my friends for my continued health and well-being, both physical and mental. I hope that in some way I serve a reciprocal function to them.

And I am equally grateful that these friends have put up with my crap. I know I'm sometimes a ridiculously unreasonable person who demands accommodations and considerations well beyond the bounds of ordinary politeness. Most of my friends haven't called me on this - yet. I will try to be a better person in this regard.

I'm grateful to have been a part of the global conversation these last few years. In my last post I expressed a concern - hardly anything new - that blogging's time has come and gone. Jen opined that people are spending more time (= Blogging Energy Units) on texting and social networking sites. These are essentially closed conversations, one-to-one or one-to-some, while blogging is an open conversation - one-to-many in the posts, many-to-one (or many-to-many) in the comments. Is the conversation over? Will it resume? I don't know. I'll keep waiting for it. And I'll do my best to keep up my end of things. But even if it were all over today, I would be happy just to have been engaged.

I'm grateful for the traveling I've done and the adventures I've had. Financial realities - among other things - may dictate that my travels are, for the moment, at an end. I expect they will resume again, perhaps sometime soon. In the meantime, each of those travels, each of those adventures, has left a mark on my being that has changed me in some way, usually for the better. And I'm grateful for that.

I'm grateful for my family. Everything I said about my friends applies here too, only a hundred times more.

I'm grateful for my job. It's given me the opportunity to learn, to grow, to network, to work with interesting people (including three fairly major celebrities who personally took part in putting their creative works to DVD), to save for my retirement, and to have enough money to buy a house, a car, to travel overseas three times, to travel to Florida numerous times, and to visit my friends all over the country. Even when I lost my job, the company dealt with the situation in a way that was pretty classy and probably well beyond any reasonable expectation. And then, nearly six months later, they brought me back, to start the journey all over again.

I'm grateful for the people I've worked with.

In the last group I worked with before I lost my job, I worked with an elite fighting force dedicated to turning around clients' projects in unreasonably short times with unreasonably high levels of quality and attention to detail, all at the lowest possible cost. We should have failed, time and time again, as our numbers were reduced and reduced and reduced again over the years. But we held together through sheer bloody-mindedness and a fanatical dedication to our work, to our clients, and especially to each other. Even now, the remnant of what was once my group still carries on, a four-engine plane improbably flying on with three engines gone and half a propeller on the last. I'm grateful to have been a part of such a group.

In the group I worked with when I came back, I was the slow learner that everyone took under their wings, the kid that everybody explained things to over and over and over again, the guy who everybody stopped what they were doing to help. Nobody had to do that. Everybody could have said "Sink or swim, pal." But they didn't. And I'm grateful for that. And I will remember it.

I'm grateful to the Toyota corporation for making the 1996 Toyota Tercel DX, a fantastic car that still gets 35-40 mpg after over 286,000 miles.

And, last but not least, I'm grateful to you, dear readers, without whom I would just be talking to myself. Thank you for visiting, thank you for reading, thank you for commenting, and thank you for coming back.

I'm supposed to pass on this award, but I do not feel worthy to judge anyone in this regard. If you feel grateful for something, a little or a lot, please claim the award for yourself and post in on your site. And once again, thank you !