Be Grateful for GratitudeWritten by Angie Dixon
In Twelve Step meetings, it’s traditional to groan when someone says, “Let’s have a gratitude meeting.” People don’t like to talk or think about what they’re grateful for. It’s not in our nature. We’re more tuned to what’s going wrong than what’s going right. We can’t help it. The cave men who sat around and admired how white teeth on saber toothed tiger were, didn’t last long enough to reproduce. The ones who realized those teeth were a bad thing are our ancestors, so to speak.But gratitude is important. Sometimes I just sit in my office, which I painted and decorated myself after moving into a wonderful new house, and I look at all hangings on wall and things on my desk and books on my shelves and I remember growing up in a house where I couldn’t sleep in my bedroom in winter because north wind blew through window and room was uninhabitable. And I feel grateful.
| | Doing Your Life's WorkWritten by Angie Dixon
Most people want to do their life’s work. Some people are able to separate work completely from life and be happy doing anything, but this is not norm. I once knew a man who managed things for a living. He’d managed a restaurant for several years, seen an ad in paper, and become manager of a print shop. He didn’t particularly like job, but he didn’t hate it. And I will never forget what he said, when trying to convince me I could do a better job with my attitude. “It’s just a job. It’s not your life. You have a job so you can afford to have a life when you go home. You come in here, you act like you’re having a good time, you do work, then you go home and play.” Well, that may have been fine for him, and I know other people who have their fulfillment outside their jobs—for instance, an apartment complex manager whose real passions are cooking and gardening. She likes her job fine, she’s been there 20 years, but it’s just a job.
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