Sometimes when life starts to feel vexing, I do some appreciation journaling. It's amazing how easily my outlook can be transformed by the simple practice of asking what one thing I appreciate of that day. No matter how crudtastic the events, or how surly I'm feeling about them, there's always something. Usually, the one cascades into many.
…grateful to have such-and-such person who let me rant about crudtastic X*Y and nodded in all the right places…grateful that it was a sunny warm day when I stepped outside this morning...grateful that someone invented crepes, or sushi, or omigod Trader Joe's Lemon Curd…grateful to see it turns out there were multiple things today that I can be ever so grateful for…
Heck, those are just samples. Lately I could write far better lists any time of day. Lucky lady; make way.
Grateful to have learned to be more comfortable accepting others' appreciations, and with sharing openly what I appreciate of them as friend, colleague, client, mentor, student, or educator.
Glad to have taken the plunge of moving to San Francisco. Relieved that it has so thoroughly proved to be the right decision.
Affirmed by finally getting to be among a swirl of peers, including discoveries of what wealth of opportunities arise along with them: collaborations, competitions, lively conversations, tipping each other off to new stuff, the back-and-forth about how to solve problems, etc. Heck, even pillow talk is better; yay for geek-to-geek snuggling.
Appreciative that others have been consciously making space for women — and for other mariginalized groups — to engage in our professions and lead them forward. Inspired to take part, contribute, support, exhort, high-five, keep the momentum growing. Railsbridge, Women Who Code, Black Girls Code, DevChix, CodeChix... God how I'm loving doing the volunteering. Busy busy.
Stoked about getting to poke around inside the startups and major movers that sponsor events for us. Not to mentioning hearing from the engineers who work from them, and seeing announcements that these companies are hiring like crazy.
Energized by what others are doing.
Fascinated by the tools and techniques they keep introducing. (Ahem. Feel free to raise the floodgates some. The onslaught of new-new-new-always-one-more-changeroo is how I hit Professional Overwhelm in the first place.)
Gratified by having met bigger challenges and having made bolder choices.
Joyful every time I enter my lovely new home! (Which counts as a professional gratitude, since that also is where office resides.)
Exhilarated to be bringing my disparate geekitude circles into professional cahoots.
Serene for having taken the time to re-discover what gets me out of bed in the morning. In the fast-moving current of tech life, holding still for a while is a blissful action.
There's a lot more I could say. But bringing it to the higher-level abstractions has covered a fair amount of that territory.
Today I am also thankful that it did not rain. It counts, totally.
P.S. Belated addition! Grateful for having the most excellent neighbors. Just the kind you'd want. Not work related, you say? Pshaw. If any less awesome, I would be Internet Worker Without Internet Access. Fi-fi-fo-fum.