November 20, 2008

Attitude of Gratitude

I’m in a bad mood today with work again. We had a state-of-the-practice conference call today, and while leadership said only positive things and didn’t mention anything about layoffs, the fact that they were making big productions out of sales that in the past would have been minor wins did not inspire confidence. Rumor has it there are more cuts coming in December/January, so I’m not out of the woods yet.

Additionally, today, my laptop crashed in the middle of me trying to get stuff ready for a presentation. I was working from home, and while I called our outsourced support center, they told me I was going to have to see a live technician. I quickly got into some work-appropriate clothes and headed into the office, and after showing them my laptop, they told me they would need to give me a new laptop, which would take four hours! They couldn’t even get me a loaner laptop for an hour! That’s pretty unacceptable – you would think they’d be able to come up with a solution faster than that.

I was left with nothing to do and feeling quite lost without my computer. I finally got the loaner laptop, but none of my files, so I’m catching up on e-mails and personal stuff – just means I’ll swap out my plans for tonight and stay late at the office to get stuff done since I’m taking care of personal stuff now. For the weekly Runners’ Lounge Take It And Run Thursday question, we’ve been asked to share why we’re thankful for running. There’s nothing like gratitude to get you out of a bad mood, so here goes:

  1. I’m thankful for having a marathon to look forward to in order to get through a rough week.
  2. I’m thankful for the delicious pasta dinner I’m going to have tonight, and for the wine I’m going to celebrate with on Saturday night.
  3. I’m thankful that runners are some of the nicest, most generous people I’ve ever met. I’m thankful that someone I met at a marathon and stayed in touch with is now offering me a place to stay this weekend to do another marathon.
  4. I’m thankful for my running blogging friends, who keep me entertained and provide me with great tips and advice. I’m thankful that running not only gives me something in common with them, but gives me an excuse to visit many of them and meet in person at races.
  5. I’m thankful for the note of pride in Boyfriend’s voice when he talks about my marathoning.
  6. I’m thankful for the excited e-mails my mom sends to our friends and family to announce that I’ve completed yet another race. I’m also thankful that she learned how to text message in order to have “You rock!” messages waiting for me as soon as I get my cell phone back from bag drop.
  7. I’m thankful that running gives me an excuse to go to every state in the country and have a big event to look forward to when I get there. I’m thankful to get to see so many beautiful and amazing parts of the country that are so different from the places where I’ve lived.
  8. I’m thankful for having really cool answers to the questions, “what do you do for fun?” “Did you do anything fun this weekend?”, and “What’s the coolest trip you’ve ever taken?” The coolest trip I’ve ever taken is still in progress: it’s this fifty-part, 131 mile journey across America on foot.
  9. I’m thankful that running provides an ultimate goal to keep me going. When the economy is collapsing and everything else is on shaky ground, and I don’t know if my goal should be to work as hard as possible to keep my current job or work as hard as possible to find a new one, running provides a constant dream to keep me looking ahead.
  10. I’m thankful that running tests my limits, builds my self-confidence, and allows me to prove to myself that I can now do 26.2 times something I once couldn’t do. Anything is possible!

This post was written as a part of Runners’ Lounge’s Take It And Run Thursday, in which runners from all across the running blogging community come together to post about a single topic. This week’s theme was Thank Goodness for Running.

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15 thoughts on “Attitude of Gratitude”

  1. There are times I stumble to find a real “reason” why i love running as much as I do, aside from the gratification of always challenging yourself and finding out you can do more and more…and more.

    And THIS just says it all. 🙂

  2. Really great exercise here. I’ve been sort of doing a similar thing. Started a new blog for personal development where I just write what I did that day, and then what I need to do tomorrow. I’ve only been doing it for three days now, but already see an increase in productivity. You have no time for distractions when u hold urself accountable, and u have no way of being let down when u see how productive and how hard you’re working. The other benefit of tracking yourself is that when you do make a mistake, u can go back and see what you were doing wrong, or what u perhaps weren’t doing at all.

  3. Laura,

    Very nice and inspiring post. I love your reasons and think you really stated them very eloquently.

    I hope your laptop issue resolves itself. Sadly this might make you smile, I had a laptop issue about a year ago and had to go without for a week! Luckily I have a personal computer in which I could keep blogging, e-mailing and using the internet but it really killed my work productivity.

    So I guess now I can have two dream jobs, weather forecaster (they can always be wrong) and Laptop replacer:-)

    Have a nice day,
    Tammy

  4. Nice post.. I’m often in a bad mood with work, and have been trying to do as you, find some things to have gratitude about, and try to work my way out of the funk.

    Nice list, though..

  5. LOVE your post, Laura! Lord knows I’ve been in a crappy mood lately . . . I think I might need to come up with a list of my own to put things in perspective . . . Thanks for making me smile for the first time today 🙂

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