Feeling Thankful and Grateful

As another Thanksgiving is upon us here in Canada, I thought I'd take a few minutes to share with you some things that I'm thankful and grateful for.

I am thankful for my wonderfully supportive family, and that we are all happy and healthy. I think that it is sometimes easy for a person to to take their family for granted, but that is a trap I do not want to fall into.I have a wonderful wife, who supports me through all of my ups and downs, successes and failures, and even my crazy ideas that I sometimes come up with. I regularly tell her that I love her, but I still don't say it enough. Love you sweetie! I also have two wonderful children who are always happy to see me, and can still put a smile on my face, regardless of how bad of a day I might have had. I also need to tell them that I love them more often than I do.

I am grateful that I have had a really good friend and co-worker over the past 7 years. He is enough like me that we get along really well, but different enough from me that I can learn something from him on a daily basis. Without him, I doubt I ever would have had the experience of attending my first entertainment expo, and known the simple pleasure of standing in line for hours on end to meet a favorite celebrity. I also wouldn't have been introduced to a whole new language, which still continues to baffle me to this day. It saddens me to know that he will soon be leaving for new opportunities. I will miss his goofy sense of humor which never fails to make me laugh, and I will miss those heart-to-heart talks that only family men can appreciate. I am thankful that I have had the chance to know him, as my life has been made immeasurably richer for knowing him.

I am thankful that I live in a wonderful community, in a prosperous province, in what can only be described as one of the best countries in the world. One only has to read the world news for a few minutes to get a sense of strife and suffering elsewhere in the world. It is in those time that it is important to reflect on how great this nation of ours is. I am proud to be a Canadian, and I am thankful that I am able to call it my home.

As strange as it may sound, I am also grateful for my now former employer. I am happy to have had the opportunity to cut my teeth as a sysadmin on a network that was just the right size over the past 13 years. It gave me a chance to explore all areas of system and network administration, allowing me to discover what it is that I really love doing. I have discovered where my passion lies as a sysadmin, and I plan to follow that aggressively. I firmly believe that what I needed most at the moment, was a firm push out the door so that I would have the opportunity to continue to grow and learn. They provided that for me, and I thank them for that. I will miss working with that fantastic group of people, co-workers and customer alike, and I look forward to continuing those friendships outside of work.

There are a lot more things to be thankful for, and there isn't space here to list them all. This short list is simply the highlights that came to mind as I mulled over my experiences over the past few weeks. If I were to take a lesson away from this, it would be to spend a few minutes each day reflecting on what I am thankful for. Believe me, there is a lot to be thankful for.

Perhaps you might want to take a few minutes right now and ask yourself, "What am I thankful for?".

Have a wonderful week!