Giving Thanks...Uhh...Or Something....

So, this year, this whole 2019 thing? Yeah, it has NOT been kind.
To any of us.
At all.

And, when things don't go well, when we're sad, when we think the universe is conspiring to ruin our good times, we tend to do a few things.
We mope, or we complain, or we point fingers.
It's rare that when life hands you lemons, you give thought to the best lemonade recipe you know, even though that's what we try to do, and it might even be what we say we do.
 It just does not always work out like that because it's hard to see our way out of things when we are stuck IN the thing...ya know?

What I want to be able to do, ideally, is look at a situation as an OPPORTUNITY.
Even those situations that are working my nerves--I wish I was  able to be THANKFUL that I have a situation that can really test my problem-solving skills.  What if I had NO situations?  Worse--what if I had no skills???
I should consider myself lucky that my life is interesting enough to even HAVE situations, and the logical processes necessary to deal with them. Wouldn't that be awesome? If I could look at it that way?
 Imagine how my perspectives would shift about everything.  Nothing would be awful because everything would be a lesson in which I had a chance to learn something.
Arghhh.  If it only it were that easy, right?  I know!

So, bottom line, I wish I was thankful for ALL opportunity, not just the ones that may provide immediate, tangible benefits.  If I were thankful for ALL opportunity, it is likely that my life would be better

So...your turn.
What do you WISH you could be thankful for? How would your life better if you were thankful for it? How come you're not?  Can you see any way to change your own mind about it? 

Holding Out for a Hero

ME:   Hello! Hi! What's up?  So, for the purposes of this week's blog, I'm going to ask you to jump into the Way Back machine--and review the old concept of the Hero's Journey! Good times, amirite?

Y'all:   (group chat text) and then,
 ....

ME:   ....

Y'all: 
....

This is how it goes in my head, lololol. So, anyway...

 The Hero's Journey is ubiquitous (look it up)--I don't know why we stop teaching it in 9th grade. Everything is a journey story, tbh.   But more importantly, all LIFE is, in some way, our own private hero's tale.

Many of you already know the circular concept of the hero's journey, or maybe you have no idea, but here is a quick refresher either way:

 There is "the call," which is, ostensibly, the beginning of the journey, this is what starts you on your path in the first place;

 there is the "threshold"--literally, crossing over from the known into the unknown, maybe it's moving into a new house, or going from high school to college;

 the "challenges or trials," a.k.a. life's little but yet HUGE problems, or dragons to be slain, if life were a book

 "the abyss"--when you think the whole world is against you and nothing will ever be right again.

Once you get past all of that you move on to "the transformation," or in other words, the "What have you learned, Dorothy?" moment--that moment you realize what you learned has changed you in some really significant way,

 "the atonement"--how have you made peace with what you've learned or become or how have you accepted your new identity,

 and finally, "the return" (with a gift), where you come back to the only place you've ever known a changed person with a host of knowledge/skills or wealth to aid in all future endeavors.

Think of any movie or song or book you LOVE--and when you really analyze it, you start to see that all of literature revolves around some schematic of this journey, and if you think about it, all of your lives do too. Especially at this stage of your high school careers.

 Some of you have lived lives and seen things you never should have, never wanted to or never thought you would, for better or worse. All of you have been through problems and overcome obstacles and persevered.

 My question this week is--how?
How did you do it?
What type of mental, spiritual, physical, or intestinal fortitude (look it up) did you need to have in order to emerge victorious from your journey?
What was the journey?
Did you embark upon it willingly or were you pushed?
What did you learn?
Did it change you? For the better? Or worse?
 Did you have help, or "guardians" as they say in Journey jargon?
Tell me about it. 
(400-450 words MINIMUM--this is for those of you that seem to have paragraphia anorexia--which is, btw, not a real thing)