This Thanksgiving as your mind wanders to the yearly task of catching up with friends and family, eating heartily, and looking forward to the holiday season ahead. We invite you to take an opportunity to look over the previous year, consider both your wins and losses and express the gratitude that is due.
We know that the year has not been kind to many, and that the current events may not seem fitting for an expression of gratitude, but these are the moments when this simple act can do the most good. Saying ‘thanks’ is not a celebration of all the things that are right, but the acknowledgment of the beauty and potential that is always available if you are willing to plan, react, and reach for what you want out of life.
If you are struggling with that initial stretch, we have a couple of quotes that we would like to share with you agin from our “Becoming Better Men” Series:
Trail breakers, innovators, risk takers. Those who boldly go where no one has gone before. They make this life exciting; they bring about progress—good or bad. They cause us to look at life in a different way—as we should.
Les Stroud, On Being a Man
Full speed. All go, no quit, toward long and short term goals without slacking. You can “get after it” doing bad things, like, opening a case of doughnuts.
Echo Charles, On Cheat Days, Bro Science, and Best Lessons
Expectation is kind of a magic potion, because when you have high expectation, you can actually experience the reality is actually better. It is an amazing thing. Let’s say you go to dinner, and somebody describes that dinner in an amazing way. They tell you exactly how wonderful the food is, where the ingredients are coming from, and where they got the wine, and so on. You are going to enjoy everything to a higher degree. In much of life we actually don’t do that. We rush from place to place, we do things too quickly, we don’t use language enough and we don’t describe things enough.
Dan Ariely, On Life, Love, and Finding Your Own Success
Be a Blessing to Those Around You– Happiness comes from having relevance, purpose, and impact. From the time we are born, men have to excel at sports, school, and their job. How much of oneself can you carry on your own shoulder. Being a blessing to others liberates men from this singular self focus.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Three Things Every Man Should Know
Don’t let what other people think influence your decisions. You’re never going to make everyone happy all the time. If we knew this a long time ago, we would have saved ourselves a lot of time and energy.
Boyz II Men, Three Things Every Man Should Know
Find that gift that you have within [and then] work like mad to find that talent you have that is uniquely yours.
Pete Nelson, On Manly Stuff
Our team may be a mix of religion and faith, but we all agreed when we saw the video below that Russell M. Nelson has the answer to the great internal question, “What is my superpower, and how could I use that to make a positive difference in the world today?”
We thank you for being a part of our mission to help men live a more fulfilling life.
The Urbasm Team
About Dr. Eric J. Leech
Eric has written for over a decade. Then one day he created Urbasm.com, a site for every guy.
About Dr. Eric J. Leech