{"id":1304,"date":"2014-04-29T08:11:39","date_gmt":"2014-04-29T12:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/?p=1304"},"modified":"2014-04-29T08:09:39","modified_gmt":"2014-04-29T12:09:39","slug":"a-constant-state-of-thankfulness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/a-constant-state-of-thankfulness\/","title":{"rendered":"A Constant State of Thankfulness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/IMG_0111.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1305\" src=\"http:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/IMG_0111-300x288.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_0111\" width=\"300\" height=\"288\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/IMG_0111-300x288.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/IMG_0111-1024x983.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/IMG_0111.jpg 1958w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I know it may seem strange that my dog, Bob Marley, would be my source of inspiration and reflection. I&#8217;m a dog lover and have been for most of my life. This little guy is seven and has been ill the last month or so. It&#8217;s the first time we&#8217;ve dealt with major sickness in the time we&#8217;ve had him. It caught my family by surprise.<\/p>\n<p>The surprise was found in the nature of a first time, but it also caught me taking his constant companionship for granted. I&#8217;ll confess that I always thought of him as a constant, constant as the earth I walked on everyday. I know better.<\/p>\n<p>As Bob Marley has been recovering (too soon to say full recovery), he reminds me everyday that now is what is constant. Epic living is found in that statement. There&#8217;s a chance you&#8217;re thinking that you&#8217;ve heard this story before. More flip advice from a world full of lists and how-to formulas. Maybe so, but ask yourself when you last said thank you for the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The breath of life<\/li>\n<li>Your family (immediate)<\/li>\n<li>Your luck<\/li>\n<li>Your work (not your employer in this example)<\/li>\n<li>People who helped you get to where you&#8217;re at<\/li>\n<li>Friends who stuck with you when things got ugly<\/li>\n<li>Your health<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>I&#8217;m advocating the now because it breeds a constant state of thankfulness.<\/strong> Discovering thankfulness when it&#8217;s too late is painful and ripe of regret. You can start now, right now, if you want to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I know it may seem strange that my dog, Bob Marley, would be my source of inspiration and reflection. I&#8217;m a dog lover and have been for most of my life. This little guy is seven and has been ill the last month or so. It&#8217;s the first time we&#8217;ve dealt with major sickness in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,54,82,7],"tags":[1594,1596,1597,823,180,86,92,62,1598,93,1595,811,257,240,17,42,67],"class_list":["post-1304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-learning","category-life-perspectives","category-relationships","category-wellbeing","tag-constant","tag-dog","tag-dogs","tag-epic-living","tag-eric-pennington","tag-family","tag-health","tag-inspiration","tag-pets","tag-relationships-2","tag-state-of-thankfulness","tag-thankful","tag-thankfulness","tag-well-being","tag-wellbeing-2","tag-wellness","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1304"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1309,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304\/revisions\/1309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}