January: #ThankYouMonth

 
I have been doing #ThankYouMonth during the month of January. The original of this little project was coming from Our Daily Bread. January is the month of global #ThankYouMonth. The rules are pretty simple, but it depends how you do so into your real life. 

Spend the whole month learning about gratitude.

We can easily find something to thank God every day.

When you think of all that’s good, thanks to God.

Remember that as a normal human, we don’t always think all that’s good. Sometimes not-so-good things happen and we cannot deny it. The real challenge is here: just say thank you to God.

Too many things happened in this month. Started from my long holiday- Andreas came with his sister family to Bali (and actually he came again last week), got a new job, and I was not only learning about gratitude in January, I also learned some other lessons. 

1. When you choose to be happy, you are happy.

2. Doing hobby during spare times is (kinda) important.

Since I was writing my first book, I have read lots of books and articles about passion and purpose of life. It was pretty obvious that I was too busy care about my passion. Pursue a passion is good, and you have to. But sometimes we just need to do whatever we want. I am talking about hobby here. Our passion is not our hobby (well maybe our hobby happened to be a passion, mine is writing, for example). Instead of writing, I will do something else in my spare times. Sunday usually is my free day. After went to church, I simply let myself do some hobbies that maybe I rarely do in weekdays. Reading books, napping (uh, nice!), etc. Pursue a passion is good, but don’t forget to enjoy your hobbies too. 

And of course #ThankYouMonth won’t stop only at the end of January, we have to be thankful every day, every moment in our life. I was inspired so much from my dear friend, Sastika. She did 365 days of gratitude journal and I am doing the same thing, but I made a little bit modification. Instead of writing  a journal, I make a “Gratitude Jar” (thanks Joei for this idea!). The rule is pretty simple, you just write down in a small Post-It about things you should be thankful that day, then put it in the jar. That’s it! This little activity becomes a habit for me, especially when I just came home after work, I straight to the jar and put my “thankful” note in it. If you want to do the same, just find any kind of jar (mine using an old chocolate can from Harrods), put the jar anywhere you can easily find out. 

So, anything to be grateful today? (:

“Oh, give thanks to the Lord of lords!” –Psalms 136:3