Good Morning Digital Neighbors! Hello friends at Rubin Report, Phetasy, Triggernometry and Padre's. Sure I have all my little affectations for you that I use on these post, you know them all. 😁 For me it is all part of making you part of my extended family, some I know well from our interactions here, others are like 3rd or 4th cousins that I many know of, but really have never met. Where ever you fall on that spectrum, I am thankful this platform, Locals, and these communities are places of connection and engagement.

Akin to gratitude, one of my favorite topics, is appreciation & encouragement. I don't like to be blind in my appreciation or encouragement, but mindful. Complimenting, encouraging or appreciating for trivial or inconsequential things often devalues the experience of actual accomplishment. Children can see through it and adults just become jaded once they realize it.

While mindless appreciation can have negative consequences, absence of appreciation can be devastating. There are people who journey through life with no appreciation for much of anything. I cannot imagine making my pilgrimage through life with no awareness of the gift of living, no appreciation for the experiences life may afford me and no appreciation for the talents and gifts of other or even my own.

Families are often the test lab for the experience of appreciation. There we learn the balance of appreciation. We might come from homes of mindless appreciation and either become addicted to it, or jaded from it. We might come from homes of no appreciation, which can leave us feeling bitter and that nothing is worthy of our notice or appreciation. Most of us probably come from families that were a mixed bag of appreciation and indifference, of being noticed and being ignored, of thoughtful encouragement or negative engagement.

Thankfully none of us are prisoners to our family history. We can grow from the good and shift out the bad. I am not a fan of perpetual victimology, crap happens, deal with, process it and do your best to make most of it. Conversely, having it too easy, being awash in too much mindless appreciation (faux-appreciation) can mistaken make one think life is a cakewalk. A life of minimal engagement, little effort and no goals or hopes might make life a cakewalk, but it will be boring as hell.

Our 8th Graders are being Confirmed this Sunday. Their word for the weekend is STRIVE. That is such a good succinct word for living a life of appreciation. What do you strive to become, where to you strive for life to lead you, what do you strive to learn from life? So many applications, striving leads to a life of engagement that one can hope is filled with appreciation, not only from the good we experience, but the painful lessons as well.

Well Refugees, Phamily & Triggeratti, Early Birds, Dawn Patrol, Fascinating People, Later Dayers, Day Walkers & Beautiful Bigots, thank you for taking the time to read this morning musing and many of them that I post in my wee hours of the day. Know of I appreciation for our Content-Creators and the communities they opened and the wonderous and assorted people they have attracted. Some of you have grown very fond of in my ventures here. A couple of quotes and something beautiful to finish off this post. Happy Saturday!

Wise men appreciate all men, for they see the good in each and know how hard it is to make anything good. -Baltasar Gracian, The Art of Worldly Wisdom

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. -Anne Bradstreet, Meditations Divine and Moral

Ignorant men Don’t know what good they hold in their hands until They’ve flung it away. -Sophocles, Ajax

Spring Cottage - Buckinghamshire