Be Thankful – Build Your Legacy
What are you thankful for? What makes you feel wealthy? There are so many things in my life that I take for granted.
Often we forget the small wonderful things of our lives – the things that make us feel loved, secure, happy and grateful. Often we are so busy striving to reach our goals that we don’t think about what we have in our lives, our communities and in our world.
Find One Thing
I challenge you, this Thanksgiving season, to find one thing a day that makes you feel rich: one thing a day that you take for granted but would sorely miss if you didn’t have it; one thing a day in your community that you love; one thing a day on this earth that needs your care to continue.
Build Your Legacy
Be grateful for that one thing a day, then take steps to make sure it is available for future generations as well! Build your legacy to the world by making sure the things you love will remain.
A Few of My Favorite Things
Here are a few of my favorite things – things which make me feel like the richest person on earth – things for which I am thankful:
- Living in a place of peace
- Waking on my own schedule
- Sipping fresh, hot coffee first thing in the morning
- Snuggling down into a warm, soft bed at night
- Walking through quiet wooded trails and gazing up at a deep blue sky laced with white cirrus clouds
- Belonging…to family…to community…to country…to spouse
- Stepping into a nice hot shower
- Turning on a faucet and getting clean hot and cold running water
- Using indoor bathrooms
- Hearing the fan from the central heating furnace kick on in the winter
- Eating my fill – every day
- Watching a cool breeze weave it’s way through the trees – rustling the leaves as it goes
- Talking and laughing with an old friend
- Sitting in comfortable silence with my spouse
- Seeing my Grand kids race through the house squealing with delight
- Feeling safe and secure
- Remembering past times
- Hiking in a national park
- Watching a rafter of turkeys stroll through our front yard
- Having electricity that works
- Finding everything I need and want at the store – and being able to pay cash for it
- Watching TV and movies at home
- Petting a dog
- Giving someone a gift they really, really like
- Being in control of my body and my mind
- Having the ability to talk with almost anyone in the world, any time, without leaving home
- Surfing the net and finding a world of information at my finger tips
- Helping someone else feel better
- Being able to start something new
- Opening my mail
- Listening to a flock of geese honk their way to the horizon
- Trying to leave the world a better place than when I came to it.
What’s Your Action Plan?
Make your own list, then take action to make sure you and others in the future can continue to be grateful for the things that make you feel rich. Maybe your action is to be more healthy in body and mind, maybe your action is to volunteer at the local homeless shelter, maybe your plan is to save a piece of land for a future park or save the earth for future generations.
Whatever your plan, start working it to build your legacy. Be thankful. Take action.
What’s your legacy going to be? I’m working on mine!
