KEEP UP THE BEAT!

Have you recently connected with a friend and been on the receiving end of the basic question "How are you?" and answered it with anything other than "Great!"?  The other night I received a more honest response from someone as they told me that their day was okay, but really just another ordinary day.  A simple response, yet somewhat profound.  I hardly ever respond with such honesty -- especially in our Facebook driven world of competitive comparisons of Status Updates and Posted Photos.  Can life ever look less than extraordinary or has ordinary become passe?

I was ruminating on this whole idea this morning as I was informed by my boss that our recently hired operations manager has resigned before his first official day on the job due to a better offer, our intern has dyslexia and probably needs to quit soon to focus on school, and our lead customer service representative has given her two weeks notice to transition into the insurance industry.  Awesome day to start giving thanks, right?

Brace yourself -- Pollyanna is about to get up on her soap box -- I'm not going to head into the holidays with a cloud above me, instead I am going to try and Keep Up The Beat!!  Get it?  My little play on words, to stay upbeat?!  Yes, I have possibly overdosed on lattes this morning but for now I will state that it is erroneous.  No Twitter tweet, FB update, or work challenge is going to make me feel like life isn't worth celebrating this weekend.

Sometimes we have to set aside significant time and energy to actually give thanks and recognize the blessings in our life.  Do you have a roof over your head?  Do you have good health?  Can you name at least one person in your life that knows you well and loves you just for being your perfectly flawed self?  If the answer to two out of three is yes, then we are on the right foot to a very Happy Thanksgiving!

As for the other challenges that flow freely through life...they will still be there on Monday to tackle, so let's just deal with it then...

"A philosophy of life: I'm an adventurer, looking for treasure."

- Paulo Coelho, from his best-selling book "The Alchemist".