STORIES OF BLESSINGS ON NOVEMBER 30, 2014, PART 1
TOPICS IN THIS BLOG POST:
1 APOLOGIES (AND NANOWRIMO)
2 A NEW VISION AND PERSPECTIVE REGARDING THE BLESSINGS OF THE NOW
3 REMEMBERING OUR BLESSINGS
4 HOW TO KEEP A BLESSINGS COUNTED LIST
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APOLOGIES (AND NANOWRIMO)
Written 2014-11-30 08:31:12, Sunday
APOLOGIES
Let me begin by asking for your patience from yesterday and today as I did, and will do, multiple blog posts. I will cut it back to one per day Monday through Saturday after today.
The reason for the multiple posts yesterday and today is because I am giving my full attention to my writing of Stories of Blessing, counting my blessings, and coaching on how you can become a Blessings Counter, too, through keeping a Blessings Counted List. I have redoubled my effort to share with you stories of blessing and help you to share yours as well, even if it's just in your own private Blessings Counted List.
Living a life of counting our blessings means living a life of gratitude and thanksgiving, versus living a life in which we choose never to be satisfied and always wanting more. Living the more life means living for things and people, not a life of meaning. That is not a rewarding, fulfilling, or purposeful life. Whereas, living a life of blessing makes this life more than bearable, it makes life truly and deeply enjoyable.
I am writing, as a whole, to share these things with you and to help me get more of a blessing-focused vision and perspective.
NANOWRIMO (NATIONAL NOVEL WRITING MONTH)
But, I have written, and will write multiple blog posts yesterday and today for the National Novel Writing Month of November (NaNoWriMo or NaNo for short).
So far, I have 45,000 words of a minimum of 50,000 due by eleven this evening.
Yesterday, I started with 38,000 words and today I started with 44,500 words. I am confident I will win NaNoWriMo this year and it is all through Stories of Blessing.
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2 A NEW VISION AND PERSPECTIVE REGARDING THE BLESSINGS OF THE NOW
Blessings mean living a life of gratitude and thanksgiving for what you have now and not overlooking it or taking it for granted, as each are so easy to do. If we cannot appreciate what we have now, how can we ever appreciate anything different. What we have now is our greatest resource and strength, if only we would learn how to see now with different vision and perspective.
How can we see everything and everyone now as a blessing, and have a renewed vision to do so, believe it or not is through counting our blessings. The more we search for and count our blessings, the more blessings we will see. This will make our now, and our future and past, a blessing as well.
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3 REMEMBERING OUR BLESSINGS
Written 2014-11-30 08:42:48, Sunday
A lifestyle of counting blessings means appreciating life as you live it and not overlooking all of the good in the now, in the present. It is appreciating life to its fullest and not living a mediocre life. It is living a life of purpose.
Counting our blessings helps us to appreciate the little things as well as the big things, and everything in-between.
Counting our blessings is actually not about doing something. Rather, it is about living a life of being. Counting our blessings is about living a deeper, more meaningful, more purposeful life. It is about getting rid of shallow, easy, and petty living.
Living a life of gratitude, a life of blessing, is vastly different than the lifestyle of the world today. The world says more is better and best. However, have you noticed that once someone gets what is better and best, they still want more? It is a lifestyle that will never be fulfilled. It's a life of more, busyness, always trying to focus on self and the way we look and are perceived. We buy more, want more, seek more, get busier, trying to live a life of happiness and fulfillment, but never getting there.
Living a life of counting our blessings requires we go against the grain, against the world, and live a deeper life of meaning. It helps us to look around and see life for what it is, now, and not overlooking it. It's seeing how much we have to be grateful and is a life of stopping to overlook or take for granted what we have, and who we have today.
But, counting our blessings will only take us so far. We need to count them and remember the blessings we have counted. If we do not, then we take our blessings for granted and treat them like a one time gift.
The beauty about each blessing is it can be recounted over and over again and each time we count it, we are given joy.
When was the last time a bite of ice cream was able to offer you that?
When was your fancy new house able to offer you continual joy? There is something that always has to be fixed or something can always look better in your home.
When was the last time a video game brought you continual joy?
Nothing and no one in this life can bring you the deep joy, sense of meaning, and purpose than counting our blessings. And, we can keep experiencing the deep, meaning, and purpose of the same blessing each time we count it. Everything else in this life has a shelf-life or is short lived.
Therefore, it is critical we remember our blessings counted?
How do we remember our blessings counted? We keep a Blessings Counted List. That is how.
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4 HOW TO KEEP A BLESSINGS COUNTED LIST
Written 2014-11-30 08:38:19, Sunday and 2014-11-30 08:56:04
I have learned through my counting of blessings in the last thirteen months how keeping a Blessings Counted List is an art form. But, it is not what you are thinking.
It is important to figure out a way to help you count your blessings. Whether it's speaking them into an audio recorder, and then typing them out at the end of the day, or keeping a list like a grocery list on a pad of paper, or sending yourself an email of blessings, or keeping an online journal. Figure out what way helps increase the chances of you counting your blessings to begin with, but also motivates you to count even more when you are counting your blessings.
And, if what you are doing now, while counting your blessings, stops being so fruitful, then change how you do it until you find a new meaningful way to search for and count your blessings. It is really that simple. I will warn you, though, there are days it takes me changing it up all day long in order for me to count my blessings. So, you may experience the same thing from time to time.
The key is to go with it. Work with it. And, keep searching for and counting your blessings, particularly when you do not want to or feel it. When you feel this way, it is a lot like working out, that is when it is most important for you to do so, and if you do, it usually becomes a very productive day.
So, how do you keep a Blessings Counted List? The key is to work with what you prefer to do. How do you like most to write? Is it with paper and pen, making an audio recording, through sending an email, a blank document, or an online journal, for example? Whatever you prefer to do when you write, do that.
I will share my system, merely as an idea and to help stimulate your mind so you can figure out what would and would not work for you. You do not have to do what I do. Find what works for you. Experiment.
I use multiple platforms to count my blessings: my tablet, my cell, paper and pen, and audio recorder. I do whatever works best for me at the time. However, at the end of the day, I make sure to get it all saved over the Internet, on the Cloud, so my Blessings Counted List can never be lost and I can access it with any Internet capable device from anywhere in the world and at any time. I never want to lose a blessing and i never want to miss a blessing. This helps me to prevent both.
I use Penzu for my online journal and it is saved over the Internet. So, I will always have that journaling, my Blessings Counted Lists.
I also keep one Blessings Counted List per day, then, I combine it into a monthly list in a document, which I then email to myself so it is saved permanently. Then, I save my monthly lists into a quarterly document and then into a yearly document. This archival system helps me to find and review my blessings.
I cannot even begin to tell you how delightful it is to see multiple files of daily blessings, weekly blessings, monthly blessings, quarterly blessings, and yearly blessings. In time, I will also have a decades list and file list as well.
I do everything I can to help make it easier for me to count my blessings and to recount them again later.
The more blessings I count on the page, the better life becomes. After all, on a challenging day, I can go back and recount my blessings and see how blessed I really am overall, even though this moment might be one of storm. This makes it all worthwhile.
Also, I share my blessings with others in roder to help them to see the blessings in their lives. It is a way to coach people and help them to gain the vision to search for, find, and count their blessings.
How do you keep a Blessings Counted List? You experiment and figure out what works for you at the time. you know if it is working because you count your blessings goal and you then you are motivated and inspired to count a few more.
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