40 Reasons Why: Reason #3 - Getting better at 'Thanks!'

40 Reasons Why: Day #3, Reason #3 - Getting better at 'Thanks!'

Confession time!  And what better place to confess a deep, dark secret than in this private, intimate setting with just you and my 8.2e12 closest internet friends, right?  Here 'tis: I am absolutely rotten at saying, 'thank you.'  How rotten? This rotten: Back in '89 my folks threw a joint graduation party for my older brother (college) and me (high school).  It was attended by tons of school and family friends, some who knew me since pretty much the time I was conceived, and I finished the day with a metric buttload of loot and $$$.  Guess how many thank you notes got sent out from me to all of these generous people.  That's right:  ZERO!  To give you some perspective on how significant that is: If you lined up all those thank you notes end to end, they would circle the earth exactly zero times.  No, I'm not really proud of that. 

Since then, expressing thanks hasn't ever come very easy to me.  In my [weak-ass] defense, there were a lot of significant circumstances that led to zero thank you notes getting written after that party.  But now that I'm at the starting blocks of my 5th decade, it seems like it's time to understand and get over whatever it is that makes it hard to express simple gratitude and thanks.  I mean, come on, already!  What takes less effort, yet leaves such good feelings, as a heartfelt "thank you?"  It's right up there with, "I love you;" "You been working out?' and; "You wanna share these french fries?"

Which is where raising $40G for HIV comes in.  In my past fundraising endeavors, the average individual donation size has consistently been about $40.  So in $40G there's 1000 potential opportunities for me to say, write, email, and blog a little slice of gratitude.  And don't forget all of the fundraising event venues, prize donors, riding partners, encouraging emails and phone calls, and friend-of-a-friend connections that will be/are part of raising all that cash.  All told, that's a gajillion opportunities to be grateful and share those feelings of gratitude and understand what's made it so challenging in the first place and, ideally, make it easier to say thanks in the future.

And on that note, this past Monday's fundraiser at Sophia's Thai Kitchen raised $1000!  So when it hits my account we'll be at about $17,500.  Thank you ALL so much for that!