Ya Gotta Be Grateful

​Sometimes I need a bit of motivation.

I need a bit of a boot up the backside.

Let's call my metaphorical boot - gratitude. 

Life sometimes throws some horrible things at you. Atrocious stuff like somebody I had to fire yesterday and the emotional blowup/fallout everyone had to endure afterward around me.

There was the passing of my extraordinary father — what a great dad.

Sometimes I get in a funk, and I'm my own worst enemy.

These things are all part of life. 

Then there are things like getting together with my friend Dale yesterday, whom I hadn't seen in years. 

I got to play golf twice this week. 

I got to spend two weeks with some good friends visiting from England. 

So many things come my way unexpectedly and at just the right moment. 

It's difficult to see how anybody could have planned my journey. 

Let me tell you a little story. 

When I was about 14 years old during the Age of Aquarius, when the moon was in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligned with Mars, my mother, God bless her, went out to an astrologist, probably after one too many Screwdrivers, to get a reading done on her number one son (and possibly his brother as well). What do the stars hold for their future? Where will they end up?

In that report were charts and graphs in triplicate (everything was done in triplicate in the 1970s, or it wasn't done at all). There were hieroglyphs, petroglyphs, moons, stars, and constellations rising and waning planets. It was more detailed than a D-Day battle plan with arrows, and cliches, ships, guns, and even euphemisms. It had all the trappings of a big ole “You bet your sweet bippy,” astrological report.  It had lots of stuff in it, that to this day, I don't understand or even believe. 

I was quite an insecure young man. 

Fast forward about forty-five years and the predictions made in that forecast have been eerily accurate. 

Honestly, I do think astrology is a lot of malarky. Maybe that report planted some seeds in my head to give me confidence and provide some kind of assurance that things would be okay. 

Without getting all mystical and freaky, I am so grateful for the opportunity to have been placed on the planet where I was, in the right family, at the time, and in the body/mind, I occupy. 

So, when I feel like crawling into bed with a bottle of whiskey and a wet blanket, I pull out my metaphorical boot, and I apply that boot generously to my backside. 

Life - it's all we got, we gotta be grateful.  

Until next week - I wish you peace. 

---