A friend of mine posed this question to me about a week ago. It really stopped me in my tracks for a moment and made my mind dust off the cobwebs. This past year I would be lying if I said my life was golden. In fact, the truth is it was be plagued with potholes the like of which I never imagined possible. But this question made me wonder…. what am I really doing?

From the moment I moved to Japan my mind went into a hibernation. I became one of those sheep counters I mentioned before in Have a Dream and Count Sheep. I got into an endless cycle of repetitiveness. When this thought crossed my mind the light bulb flickered from the slow cranking of gears that creaked from lack of use deep within the folds of my brain.

After this past week, I have come up with dozens of things I am enthralled to say I am thankful for. My sister, my newly born niece, my parents, my new friends here in Japan, for having a job, and even the difficult experiences that I have had here. I am grateful for all of them. I am even more grateful for being given the chance to live through it all and meet all the fantastic people along the way. I have found some of the challenges this year to be daunting thus far, but nothing has stopped me from moving forward but myself.

Today that changes.

My friend, to answer your question in one sentence, “I am grateful for being the one in control and for being able to have a positive impact on those around me.”