And If Three Whole People, Why Not Four?

This week's gratitude challenge isn't a writing challenge, it's an action challenge. And since that's a little harder to write about, I thought about swapping it for something else, but I am tired and couldn't think of anything.

The action for this week is to express gratitude to three people. That shouldn't be too difficult, I hope. I think that one good thing about this challenge, for both myself and anyone else who is participating, is that we might recognize that a.) we don't express gratitude often enough, and b.) there are a lot of people in our lives that we should thank!

Here are some suggestions of people who should get a little gratitude thrown their way:

• Your parents
• Your kids
• Your spouse
• Your pastor
• Your teachers and professors
• Your coworkers
• Your friends
• Lunch ladies
• Firefighters and police officers
• The person who delivers your mail 
• The person who delivers your pizza
• The person who brings your carry-out to your car
• Or hands your fast food through the window
• The person who bags your groceries
• The person who rounds up shopping carts in the parking lot
• The person walking dogs and cleaning fish tanks at the pet store
• The cleaning crew at your work place
• Crossing guards
• Librarians

EVEN IF PEOPLE ARE "JUST" DOING THEIR JOBS, such as the person working carry-out at the restaurant preparing your dinner, that person is still HELPING YOU. And they probably feel like their work is pretty thankless from time to time. So what if they're getting paid for it? Don't they still deserve thanks for doing something helpful? The answer is "yes," because they are a human being. 

So my challenge is to intentionally show gratitude to three people this week. And next week I'm supposed to report back here and share about it. Even if you haven't been officially participating in the rest of this challenge with me, I encourage you to join in this week and show sincere gratitude to three people. Or more!