Tag Archives: thankful

Fatter, balder and happier: goodbye 2014 and hello 2015!

December 31, 2014 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

2014 is coming to a close and whilst I have put on some kilograms and lost more hair, I have to say that I am happier than I am ever been.
 
 I am bless with wonderful family and friends whilst also having a roof over my head and a job that I love. Really I can not ask for anything more than that!
 
 This time last year I set myself a number of goals (I refuse to call them resolutions) and whilst I did not make them all 2014 has been a great year in which I have made positive steps. I refuse, therefore, to be disappointed about the year it has been.
 
 I am not going to set any goals for 2015 save for one: I am going to start and end every day happy. I know I am going to have good and bad days and the bad days are going to effect my happiness but I am going to work hard on turning the bad days into good ones by the end.
 
 Bring on 2015!
 
 
 – Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:The Esplanade,Maroochydore,Australia

Saying thank you and being thankful: something I have not done enough of this year!

December 27, 2014 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , , Leave a comment

The festive season and holidays present an excellent time to reflect on the year that has passed and consider the good and the bad things that have occured as well as the good and bad personal conduct in the way one has acted.

 

My reflections on 2014 whilst on holiday have had a common thread through them: I have not been thankful enough this year nor have I said thank you enough. That realization has left me pondering why and the answer has been fairly easy to see: at times in 2014 I have become so mired in negativity born both of myself and the conduct of others that I have been unable to recognize times when I should have been more thankful.

 

An easy example of this revolves around my change in roll during the year. I will no go into the details but it would be fair to say that I have been hung up on the circumstances of the move too much at stages this year to be thankful for:

  • having a job when thousands in the community do not;
  • having a job, now, that I really enjoy and that mentally stretches me; and
  • having a job where the people I work for are: at the top of their fields and are wonderful people to work for.
My circumstantial negativity had lead me to not be thankful for the opportunity I have had, at stages, which appalls me.

Negativity and, by extension, depression has lead me to this lack of thankfulness. I am not going to apologize for that. Rather I am going to commit to 2015 being the year of the “Thankful Shumpty”. I will be negative and my depression will, at times, effect me at stages during the year but when I am going through those periods I am going to work hard on finding things in my life to, at the same time, be thankful for.

 

I will start now by saying again: thank you reading my writing. I have said before and I will say again that writing on this blog is a very large part of my strategy for working on my mental health. At times I have not been thankful enough for that.

Great Speech # 1: Lou Gehrig “Farewell address to Baseball”

June 25, 2014 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

“Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.

Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn’t consider it the highlight of his career to associate with them for even one day?

Sure, I’m lucky. Who wouldn’t consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert – also the builder of baseball’s greatest empire, Ed Barrow – to have spent the next nine years with that wonderful little fellow Miller Huggins – then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology – the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy!

Sure, I’m lucky. When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift, that’s something! When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies, that’s something.

When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles against her own daughter, that’s something. When you have a father and mother who work all their lives so that you can have an education and build your body, it’s a blessing! When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed, that’s the finest I know.

So I close in saying that I might have had a tough break – but I have an awful lot to live for!”