{"id":212,"date":"2012-08-01T07:32:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-01T07:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/thankfulness-in-the-midst\/"},"modified":"2012-08-01T07:32:00","modified_gmt":"2012-08-01T07:32:00","slug":"thankfulness-in-the-midst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/thankfulness-in-the-midst\/","title":{"rendered":"Thankfulness in the Midst"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>This post was written in November of 2008. I&#39;m dedicating it today to a dear friend who has refreshed my belief in thankfulness.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/epicliving.blogs.com\/.a\/6a00d8341c78f953ef010536192239970b-pi\" style=\"display: inline;\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Wall2\" border=\"0\" class=\"at-xid-6a00d8341c78f953ef010536192239970b \" src=\"http:\/\/epicliving.blogs.com\/.a\/6a00d8341c78f953ef010536192239970b-800wi\" title=\"Wall2\" \/><\/a>&#0160;<\/p>\n<p>When you think of thankfulness, is it bitter, sweet or both?&#0160; <a class=\"zem_slink\" href=\"http:\/\/epicliving.blogs.com\/epic_living\/2012\/05\/the-end-of-trust.html\" rel=\"autointext\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"The End of Trust\">In America<\/a> we&#39;re soon to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday.&#0160; This one is quite different than many before.&#0160; So many issues pressing against us.<\/p>\n<p>I have many friends who are now downright pessimistic about the future.&#0160; They see so much bad on the horizon that it causes them to lose hope.&#0160;<\/p>\n<p>One conclusion I&#39;ve come to is that I don&#39;t have the power overcome their fear.&#0160; All I can do is live out an example.&#0160; To that end, here&#39;s what I&#39;m doing:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Giving thanks in the midst of hard times<\/strong>.&#0160; It&#39;s easy to be thankful when all is going your way.&#0160; The test of our integrity comes when we have to fight through our own losses.<\/li>\n<li><strong>On-purpose indifference to the media<\/strong>.&#0160; Don&#39;t get me wrong, I&#39;m staying informed.&#0160; I&#39;m just not confusing substantive information for selling.&#0160; This is big.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Continue my habit of speaking about a better future<\/strong>.&#0160; Not a future provided, but a future created.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Embracing the little things that are large<\/strong>.&#0160; For example, one glance to create a connection with another human being, so they know how important they are.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Remember, remember, remember that fear only needs my attention in-order to succeed<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#39;m confident that by doing the above I will live a life of thankfulness.&#0160; That&#39;s the best legacy I can leave for my friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This post was written in November of 2008. I&#8217;m dedicating it today to a dear friend who has refreshed my belief in thankfulness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,123,6,54],"tags":[813,487,810,602,812,811,257,814],"class_list":["post-212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coaching","category-leadership-development","category-learning","category-life-perspectives","tag-blog-post","tag-friends","tag-in-the-midst","tag-legacy","tag-post","tag-thankful","tag-thankfulness","tag-thanksgiving"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212","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=212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}