Thanksgiving Tradition Cancelled?

“Dad, would you cancel Thanksgiving?”, my son responded brilliantly to my serious-sounding question.

I had just antagonistically asked him, “We don’t need to go to Twistee Treat today.  I mean, we can skip one Monday.  It’s no big deal, right?  What’s one Monday?”

Five years ago, I spontaneously suggested to our son, as we were leaving his school, that we stop by Twistee Treat on the way home. “Let’s get some ice cream and celebrate a great week and kick off a great weekend ahead.”

What child turns down ice cream, right?  The very next Friday, as we where leaving his school, he asked, “Are we getting ice cream?”  We all know how this turned out.

Every Friday, for more than a year, was Twistee Treat day.

Until one casual Monday, when I said, “Why don’t we go to Twistee Treat and celebrate the great weekend we just had and kick off the week ahead?”

So here we are, five years later. Do you think he’ll have trouble recalling ice cream with his Dad?  I mean, for as long as he lives?

Boundarylessness Thanks

Read this carefully, Boundary-less-ness.

Pretty cool.  Saw it engraved on a trophy at somebody’s desk a few days ago.

Clever, isn’t it, to engrave it on a bronze plate and put it on a trophy? No boundaries.  No limits. Nice reminder.

However, it doesn’t seem worth the effort to try something without limits, simply because it’s probably, if not entirely, impossible.

Why waste time on something that can’t be done?

But thankfulness, now that’s a completely different story. Anyone can give thanks.  For anything.

There is never a point where we can’t go farther with our thankfulness. Ever.  If you challenge this, I’ll challenge you. You see, every day you wake and try to tell me I’m wrong, is one more thing you can be thankful for – breathe in your nostrils and the ability to make a choice.

Bear Hug

Are you thankful for the seemingly overwhelming obstacles that appear in front of you?  Many times, I’ve finally come to learn, the solutions are simple.

What began as anger turned into an amazing blessing.

Bear hugs began about seven years ago when I was struggling to adapt to a new rule our son’s child care provider put in place.

My wife takes our son to day care, I pick him up. Upon arrival, the first thing I’d do is scoop him up and give him a hug. In many cases, I had not seen him (awake) since the day before.

The new policy change had you remain in your vehicle as your child was placed in their car seat. You never got out of the car. Some parents liked this.

I did not. In fact, it made me really pissed off angry. Fuming mad.

Solutions are often simple and many times, come from unlikely sources. A friend, gay and never ever ging to be a parent, gave me the best parenting solution.

He said, “After you pick up your son, why don’t you drive around the corner, park, get out, and do your bear hug?”

Duh!  It was the perfect solution. Perfect.

There have been a few days where we are several miles from his school when one of us realizes we didn’t do our bear hug.  Do we wait until we get home? Nope.

What overwhelming challenge have you had that turned into one of your biggest mid life blessings?

Mid Life Drug Confession?

Is Andre Agassi in midlife celebration mode?  Maybe.

About a week ago, in a rare moment (watching TV), I saw Katie Couric interview Andre Agassi on 60 Minutes.

Okay, so one of the greatest American Tennis stars had a drug problem. And no one knew about it.

And to top it off, the number one Tennis player in the world hated Tennis. And no one knew about that either. How is that possible?

Whatever and however Andre Agassi’s story played out, it’s being told now in his new book, “Open“.

Andre Agassi is 39 years old.  A perfect age to in a mid life celebration. Do you think Andre is thankful?  I mean, how could you not be thankful that you’ve had a mid life drug confession?

Maybe he has a new drug.  A drug called thankfulness.

Click here if you want to read the Times online article.

Simple Thanks Mid Life?

Simple.  Thankful. Present. Childlike. Humble.

At mid life, there are many things that can distract us from being present.  And when this occurs, we can not be thankful for even the simple things.

Not being thankful for even the simple things leaves us open to create habits that take us farther and farther from thankfulness.

This should alarm us.  And maybe, just maybe, we should be thankful for our alarm.