It’s Thanksgiving in America today. This is my adoptive country, and we celebrate quietly.

There is so much going on in this world, it’s hard to know if it’s okay to be thankful, or grateful, or if it’s being too indulgent when people are suffering everywhere around us.

Though I am not a Pollyanna by any stretch of the imagination (!), I CHOOSE my glass to be half full.

I know the glass half empty can be a way of dealing with stress, and self-sabotage, but I believe it is still a choice.

I have had conversations over the last few weeks of those who have CHOSEN the glass that is half full, and those who have fallen into the glass half empty not realizing or attempting to reach for the glass half full. What a difference in energy, in clarity, in focus!

Choosing the glass half full doesn’t mean you are watching the world through rose colored glasses. Far from it.

Choosing the glass half full means getting real with the lane you need to be in, not the lane you wish you were in.

My questions are simply this: what’s wrong with a lane that could serve you and your path? Why do we always think the grass is greener elsewhere? How is that serving you?

Are we always making excuses about “why not”? Or are we claiming the power and strength of living in the present of our lane?

Are we always dismissing what we COULD do for what we think we WANT to do, and yet, nothing is moving forward?

Are we spending more time and energy on the “why not” instead of what could work if we focused that energy?

Choosing a glass half full doesn’t mean you’ve given up. Hardly. It means you’ve CHOSEN. Choice is HUGE. Choice is EMPOWERING. Choice is CLARITY and MOVEMENT and POSITIVITY.

Choosing a glass half empty is exhausting. It is full of excuses. It takes precious energy and denial and self-sabotage and delusion.

It’s okay to turn your back on what isn’t working, or what isn’t giving you joy or purpose. All the work you did to focus on that is not lost. It is simply better rewarded elsewhere.

Are you wiling to explore what that is? Honestly, it doesn’t take as much energy as you might think! The exploration might be so close to you that you simply need to adjust your gaze, and there it is!

If your answer is “yes but…” you are still trapped in the glass half empty.

STOP IT.

Be grateful that you can CHOOSE. And CHOOSE it. Choose the possibility you have, not the option that takes your power away.

Take one step at a time. One choice at a time. Nobody takes that step, or makes that choice but you. None of those steps or choices are superficial. They all matter. YOU matter.

You have that power. It’s yours. Do it. Claim it. Let it scare you and do it anyway.

I raise my glass half full to you and hope you can do the same for yourself.

with fondness & fierceness,