For USA readers, Thursday (today, depending on where you are on the globe), is a holiday where we’re encouraged to take pause from our daily grind and give thanks for the myriad of wonderful things in our lives. For the international readers, I’d encourage you to join in.
THANKS
I’m thankful for so many things, most of which distill to health, family, and community.
This year was abundant with personal health. I recall only a sniffle or scratchy throat here and there, and my mind was more clear than in so many years past.
Family played a huge role in this year for me as well. My wife Kate was, once again, the center of my family life and rock solid as always. I’m humbled. She continues to show me how to love, as does our huge cat, Dexter. I’m best friends with my parents, who somehow continue to get younger with each passing year, and I’m awed at the warmth and generosity of my in-laws. I’m soon to be an uncle and I’m grateful also for the brother/sister in law who are bringing that little boy into the world. My grandmother, who called herself “one of the luckiest people around”, passed away recently, but left me the gift of believing in luck, even courting it, and for that I’m thankful. And I’m thankful to my aunts and uncles and grandma with whom I grew again closer – more so than perhaps in any year prior. Our extended family also got together more this year than ever before – and for that too I’m so very thankful.
Community. This leaves me almost speechless. Socially and culturally my friends and my work mates play a huge role in my life. The generosity of this group is a reason to get up in the morning, and the collective soul of these friends is rich with both kindness and a passion for life. The community here on this blog also carries me along in a way I can’t begin to describe. Within the thousands of comments posted and the millions of visits this year, I draw strength. I laugh when you thank me for this post or that, because inside I’m so thankful for your words, your support, your visits, your comments, your ideas, your links to this site, and space you reserve in your brain each day for your visit here. You are the backbone and in many ways directing the course of this pile of words and pictures. And for that, and, thus for you, I’m thankful.
GIVING
A central tenant to my being–and also this brand–is giving back. I encourage you to give back in whatever way you are able. Sometimes, we get caught up in all the ways to say “thanks” on the web: an email here, a donation click there, but this year, I’m encouraging you to give something back in the real world. Be personal about it. Tell someone to their face how thankful you are. Do something good in the community tomorrow. I’m going to give hats and gloves to those homeless on the streets of Seattle. Will you please join me in some way and give something to your community on this day, even if it’s simply a heartfelt smile? I’d really appreciate that. For remember: Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. (William Arthur Ward). So by all means, have a happy Thanksgiving, wherever on the planet you might be.
LASTLY
If you feel so inclined, share with us in the comments section some things YOU’RE thankful for. Anything sincere. I’ll select a handful of comments at my discretion, I’ll track you down, and I’ll send you a free signed copy of my book, or a limited edition t-shirt.
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I appreciate your post, it is interesting and compelling. I stumbled upon my way here through Google, I’ll come back another time 🙂
Most of all this year, I am thankful for America’s new first family. I was thankful for the election, for the amazing choice the American people made, that the government will closer match my ideals. But all the politics aside (and I recognize my ideals aren’t everyones), and as thankful as I am for the man about to take the highest office, it’s the first family that I’m most thankful for. All policies and opinions ignored, it is seeing such an amazing family standing in front of the nation. Brilliant, happy, cute, so real, so down to earth, funny. They feel like families and friends I know (though maybe more intelligent!). This family, about to move into the same house as the Kennedys, the Bushes, the Roosevelts, THE LINCOLNS.
So while I feel happy when I think about the next American president, it is when I see America’s next first family that I swell with emotion and disbelief.
There are many personal things I’m thankul for (family, friends, Seattle photo community, living in Europe) but this year, I am thankful for my country (and thankful to my country) for the four people America will look to as the new first family.
others who create
breathing
I’m thankful for the liberating education I gained at the School of Hard Knocks. By no means has my life been any more difficult than billions of less fortunate people in the world, nevertheless, I, like you and you and you… have had to overcome a lot. Circumstances have required me to learn my own life lessons with fewer teachers than ‘normal’. As I result, I have the courage, at the ripe old age of 45, to be working towards a career change despite the economy, the competition, the odds. My glass is definitely half full and I enjoy every drop!
Im thankful for you chase being so open about your knowledge of this industry and your videos inspire me to go out and shoot i always watch them when i need inspiration before a shoot.
Im very thankful to all the people that have helped me over the past year, especially to my family, who have helped support me in my quest to further my photography career.
And as far as giving i have learnt so much in this past year through meeting so many people in this industry and others who have helped me further my business that i too try and give back to the photography community by teaching other aspiring photographers what i have learnt and i try to give the confidence to do what they really want to do in life.
Long story short, Thanks chase