Talk about beautiful bookends to the day. This morning Becky woke me up early so we could get our bike ride in and we caught a brilliant red sunrise. This evening we went for a walk a little later than normal and caught a brilliant orange sunset. Nice bit of symmetry for the day!

What a lesson I learned today! There’s been a pile of old project supplies I’ve needed to take back to the store for quite some time. When I got all the old receipts together and got everything ready to take back I noticed something odd on all the receipts. There was a date in which you could no longer return something. I was furious! I figured I’d still go to return them, but the entire way there I was thinking about how they would say no, how I would try to negotiate, how I would ask for the manager, and the tizzy I would throw when they denied me. I should go back and look at my heart rate monitor, I’m sure I had quite the spike for 15-ish minutes. I was so wound up I had to take a couple of deep breaths before I walked into the store.

Guess what happened?

“No problem at all, let’s get everything rung up. Would you prefer cash or in store credit for everything? Would you like it to be one transaction or several?” asked the service desk person with a huge smile.

I couldn’t help but laugh at myself all the way home. How foolish for me to worry and get worked up? Not only did it do zero good, but it was totally unnecessary. With everything I’ve talked about with gratitude and presence it was disappointing to lapse like that. That said, I am thankful for the experience as it reminded me how much more I have to learn and why I focus on gratitude.

While listening to some old music today I realized something pretty wild. Many of the songs I’d felt like I’d identified with in the past just didn’t quite ring as true today as they did back in the day. It was rather strange, all these lyrics I used to feel hit very close to home now felt almost uncomfortable.

When I stopped to think about it I realized something. The growth and focus on gratitude and presence has helped my attitude and joyfulness more significantly than I’d realized. In the past the songs were about dreams that hadn’t quite come true, things I wanted instead of wanting what I had, living in the past and the future. The lyrics got me thinking about how that situation could be turned into a positive, how the singer should focus on the present instead of looking ahead, and so on. It was crazy! That’s when I realized how much progress I’ve made. There’s still so far to go, so much to work on, but seeing a measuring stick moment like that is something I am very thankful for today.

Thanks!!!