The Art of Giving Thanks

There was an article in Reader's Digest about how saying thank you and being thankful makes you happier. The formula for prayer is to say thank you as though you already have what you want. There is a budist prayer that I really liked in which you were supposed to make a wish for someone you love, someone you know and someone you don't like (the formula for that prayer actually said your enemy, but in real life do we have personal enemies? I don't.). I remember getting a great deal of delight wishing a particularly mean judge downtown something wonderful, but I digress.

Anyway, I am president of Glendale Beautiful, but I don't really have time to do everything the past president (who is retired and lives for this stuff) did. Many other people are stepping up and I feel like I should be sending out thank you notes. I bought the notes, but I haven't actually sent any yet.

Since I had the notes right there on my desk, I wrote one out to someone who invited me to a party last weekend. It was a short and nice little note to say thanks. I was so proud of myself when I popped it right away into the mailbox. Then I remembered the article about saying thank you. It talked about making the thank you personal and sincere. My little note was not personal and while I am sincere about saying thank you, I don't think that note really hit the mark. In my head I composed a much better thank you, with personal little stories of what made going to this party special to me and how much I enjoyed myself. I really need to write this stuff down.

I've received a lot of thank you notes and I try to explain to people that I'm not very good with that kind of thing, but I aspire to be better at it. I've only received one or two really good thank you notes--but they were pretty memorable.

Another thing that the article talked about was giving something up, so that you would appreciate it more. Well I've given up diet coke. I used to drink more than a 2 liter per day. Now I drink water instead, but I still have a diet coke when I have a meal out or sometimes as a special treat at my desk in the late afternoon and a couple of times as a treat on a friday night. I appreciate the heck out of diet coke. Not drinking as much diet coke has not helped me lose weight though. That's right, I was told that if I stop drinking diet coke that I would lose weight. The idea is that diet coke has an artificial sugar which makes you crave the real stuff and eat more. Myths and fairytales.

Anyway, the reason that I am writing all this junk is that I really want to go downstairs and buy a diet coke. It is a dollar a can and one can is such a puny serving that I know I'll want more when I'm done. I should just open a can of v8 and give myself a cheer that I've had a serving of vegetibles today. (For some reason I do not want anything after I've drunk a can of v8--it is a real appitite killer.) OR I can go and get a diet coke and a bag of chips (have I mentioned the wonderful chips that they sell downstairs) and come back and eat a bag of chips with a fresh cold delicious diet coke. I would be so thankful--I know it.