Starting Out

Today I am giving birth to a new idea in action.

Not too long ago, I read about a woman who took a picture every day of something she was thankful for. Her goal was to do it for a full year. This idea grabbed my imagination, and I began to think about what I would choose each day. What one person or thing or event or idea would I choose for that one day to be grateful for?

My life is so full of blessings and mercy and wonder. I live a charmed life, indeed. Even so, I spend too much of my energy grumbling and grumpy with God and the Universe. I need more gratitude in my life and in my heart.

My ambition is to select one blessing - just one - every day, and write about it here. There are so many to choose from! There is abundant joy and beauty in my life, yet I have focused on the wrong things for so long. I choose to re-train my heart to see what is already there, to re-focus my desires from the petty things I allow to needle at me to the amazing things that are all around me.

Today, of course, is New Year's Day 2011. And so it follows course that I am grateful for fresh starts: the opportunity to stop and reassess, to start over what wasn't going so well or start something completely new.

This is my journey. It may not be eloquent, it most certainly will not be epic. I am challenging myself to post every day for 365 days. I am realistic enough to know that may not be how it happens, and I have to give myself permission to be human.

Join me, if you wish. This isn't about unrealistic expectations (weight loss! debt reduction! immaculate housekeeping! perfectly trained children!). It is about humble acknowledgement, and maybe allowing peace a place to live inside the heart.

What are you blessed with today?