Today is the International Day of Peace established by the United Nations in 1981. I was lucky to be part of a local group who helped coordinate events throughout our city, many of which took place this past week or this weekend, such as the talk by Rajahon Gandhi on Wed and the orchestra concert last night. However, the local group (Peace Coalition) made a move to make the entire month of September peace month locally. Therefore, events will continue even after today. At my college, students, faculty, and staff have started a peace chain (wrist bands on which people have written vows of peace that are linked together) that we have hung on the bridge that spans the creek on campus. It’s a great visual. Tomorrow we plan to dedicate the peace pole (a marker that has May Peace Prevail on Earth written in different languages on it) that the college purchased.

Peace is something that I think starts on the inside. Aside from the absence of war or violence, dictionary.com defines peace as a state of mutual harmony between people or groups, and a state of tranquility and harmony and freedom from strife or dissension. Unless you can find peace within yourself, you can’t have it in a lasting way with others. I think too many people walk around with a war on the inside because they haven’t come to terms with who they are as a person and what role they have in this great play we call life. “Finding yourself” is often said in a disparaging way, but in the basic sense of the term, I see it as self-acceptance. Not an easy thing for most of us in a society that is constantly pushing impossible ideals. I like this quote from Nathaniel Branden, a psychotherapist and writer, Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship to myself. In fact, I always wear a ring on my right hand which bears the inscription “peace” on it because I’m thankful for the reminder that peace starts with me. With my own state of harmony. I’m grateful to have been part of the peace activities this week.

I’m thankful for a variety of things today:

A sleeping puppy head on my shoulder.
Eggs Benedict at a spontaneous brunch.
Slip on shoes for bad blisters.
Funny pictures.
Invitations to the orchestra.
Nighttime chats with my daughter.

It was a perfect fall day. I’m not sure if the weather could have been better, and I now wish it could be repeated for the next few weeks. The Math crew came over tonight and we ate lots of snacks and hung out around my fire pit, which was a lot of fun. Im thankful for that and for the fact that my puppy had no complications with his neutering today and still seems to love me. That’s a good thing.

It’s been a bit of a lousy day all around, so gratitude isn’t so obvious right now. But that’s exactly my purpose in writing daily. It’s so easy to get caught up in the frustrations and let them sink in, so we have to be intentional about turning the negative around or at least trying to balance it with something positive. So my morning was a three hour meeting that didn’t feel overly productive. But it ended in a pretty good lunch on a day I didn’t bring one. My afternoon was an almost 2 hour meeting about a reorganization that is going to take place during which it was announced that a colleague will soon be my boss. There are a number of factors, political and otherwise, that made the announcement uncomfortable to say the least. While I have some reservations about the change, my new boss is someone I like and respect and my area remains under my current boss, so there is consistency in programming. Finally, this evening I wasn’t able to go to the gym as I intended when I got home because the kids were gone and my puppy was in desperate need of attention. After too much jumping and nipping, I took him running with me for the first time and he kept a great pace and seemed to enjoy it (more than I did). He was much better the rest of the evening. So there. Lousy day but still enough to be thankful for.

Today I’m thankful for the following:

Finishing homework just in time.
Impromptu visit to the apple orchard and great apple pie.
Puppies who are becoming more manageable.
Pay day.
Perfect Fall weather.
Recognizing when I’m being overly emotional…
Adult conversations that follow.
…Being able to laugh at myself.
The story of the Prodigal Son.
Music that inspires me.

As a writer, I think I’m pretty good with communicating my ideas. I’m usually careful with word choice and wonder how what I say may be taken wrong or out of context. I try to imagine how others may respond so I can get a point across without being insulting or putting someone on the defensive. Usually, I’m good at it. Usually. When it comes to communicating my needs/wants/desires, I still fail miserably. I know it’s partly that I was taught to put others’ needs ahead of my own. I remember very clearly my dad asking me on more than one occasion if I thought I was better than anyone else. The answer was always no because any other answer was unthinkable. I’m not better than anyone else. This carried into my relationships, especially the 8 year one where everything between us was a competition that he had to win. I couldn’t be better than him at anything. Doing so would get retaliation in the form of thrown objects, swearing, or public humiliation. Trying to explain myself would begin an argument that somehow ended with me at fault and him saying, am I wrong? I became very adept at letting him win, until I finally got out. I thought I’d never let myself feel so small again. But I have. More often than I’d like to admit to myself or anyone else. It’s hard to be assertive for yourself when you’ve spent most of your life taking a back seat. But it’s also getting harder not to. I still don’t believe I’m necessarily better than anyone, but I think I’m just as good. And my needs, wants or desires matter just as much as anyone else’s. However, I was reminded tonight that I’m still terrible at being direct about it. There’s still something in me that whispers, but maybe that won’t be ok. Maybe they won’t want to do that. Maybe you just expect too much. Maybe you should just stay silent. After all, coming right out and saying what I really want seems selfish somehow. And it runs the risk of being rejected. It’s not at all comfortable for me, but neither is feeling unimportant, or dismissed, or ridiculous. So I’m thankful for the reminder that I still have some work to do in this area. It should be interesting.