The combination of these two goals plus the previous one that I posted on has made me stop to consider how fortunate I am. It's so easy to get caught up in drama of one thing or another and feel like life is out of control. It's harder to take a step back and appreciate what you already have.
Giving compliments to other people is not something that comes easily to me. I might notice that a certain color makes someone look fabulous or see a positive action that a friend does with no thought of repayment; however, I often don't take the step of verbalizing those reflections. This is something that I am trying to be more mindful about as I think it makes the world a better, happier place. On the flip side, I am equally bad at receiving compliments and am trying to be more graceful about my reception of them.
The 30 Day Facebook Photo Challenge is a list of items to post once per day for a month. I'm not quite sure why I chose to include this when I was making up my goal list. I think that it is usually geared more towards people who have casual acquaintances as Facebook friends; however, the majority of mine are people that I know fairly well. So, the challenge for me became more introspective - thinking each day of the topic and how it related to me. Some of my challenge answers were a bit harder to transfer into photos than others - an example: something you wish you could change - my answer was bullying. (Sidenote: this answer was in part inspired because of some recent events in my life that brought home that bullying doesn't just stop when you get out of school - as bullies age, those who don't change their ways just change their tactics). Other challenge answers were hard to narrow down to one photo - an example: somewhere you'd love to travel - yeah, I put up a photo of the pyramids, but I'd love to go lots of places.
The last day of the challenge was the one that really made me appreciate my life ... a photo of someone you miss. I miss my grandma (and my grandpa too), but I am so lucky to have my parents, my siblings, my friends, my nieces and nephews (an ever-expanding crew), and so many other people in my life. Many people that I know do not have that luxury - there are gaps and holes that will never be refilled in their circle. I know that those gaps will come to me in time as well, but, today, I appreciate all that is there for me right now.
