During our life, we'll experience moments of joy and happiness. At other times we'll be met with misery and despair. Our brief time on this planet can be summed up in how we reacted and dealt with these experiences. Ruyard Kipling, I believe, said (or wrote) it best.
If
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch, if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
***
So this Thanksgiving, I'm grateful for the moments and experiences that keep me teachable and humble. I'm thankful for the trials that help me realize how much I've been blessed with. I'm grateful for a wonderful, supportive wife, Marathon Girl, who is different enough from myself that she can provide insight and ideas that I hadn't considered when it seems as if there are no other options. And I'm grateful for the chances we have to grab life by the horns when it comes charging at you, learn and grow from our mistakes, and become a better person from all the we go through.