Thankful for failure, struggle, sadness…:

It’s a little late for a Thanksgiving post, but as my sister used to say, whatev’s, because there are some good points here. There are a few things we are typically thankful for: family, good health, a roof over our heads, etc; but there are less glamorous things in life that we should also observe.

John Maxwell argues in Failing Forward that failure is (an often necessary) part of the process toward success. Likewise feeling vulnerable or taking a risk isn’t comfortable, but that’s where real growth occurs. The writer of this article points out that sadness indicates that you actually care about something. Often these uncomfortable things are avoided, but they help us improve and grow.

Here’s the list from the article:

1. Failure
2. Criticism
3. Sadness
4. Respect
5. Options
6. Struggle
7. Delay
8. Regret
9. Family
10. This moment

10 Unexpected Things to be Thankful For via Inc.

5 Things We Will Wish We’d Done Differentl:

John Piper is known for the phrase, “Don’t Waste Your Life.”. There are a lot of things we millennials can waste life on nowadays, and this article from Relevant Magazine looks at a few (and I’m guilty in some respects):

1. Most of my spare time was sacrificed to social media
2. I knew more about celebrities than I did about my neighbors
3. I was so set on buying things, I never got the pleasure of making them
4. I wasted my life entertaining myself
5. I never found time to be quiet

Read The Full Article at Relevant Magazine

Putting The X Back Into Xmas:

Some good points about what it really means to take the “Christ” out of “Christmas”. It has nothing to do with the letter “X”, and we are all to blame.

If there is a war on Christmas, it’s because we started it with our greed, materialism, and pride.

But we can also be the ones to end it.

If we can begin to reimagine Christmas as a season for changing lives, rather than a time to change out our old TV for a new one, then not only will Christ find his way back into Christmas, but the kingdom of God will be incarnated on earth, just as it was in a manger so long ago.

Full Article: Putting The X Back Into Xmas via The American Jesus

We live in a social world. Here is the latest video from Socialnomics. Interesting stats include:

• If Wikipedia were made into a book it would be 2.25 million pages long
• New Yorkers received tweets about an east coast earthquake 30 seconds before they felt it
• Ford Explorer launch on Facebook more effective than a Super Bowl Ad
• 1 in 5 divorces are blamed on Facebook
• Every minute 72 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube

Running T-Shirt Etiquette:

One of the benefits of running multiple 5ks and other races is with each event you get a free t-shirt (complete with bragging rights). After a year of running I have enough t-shirts to last me a little while. But, interestingly enough, I found out there is a right way and a wrong way to wear those shirts. I came across an interesting list of various ‘rules’ compiled online. Here are some examples:

• A shirt cannot be worn unless the wearer has participated in the event. There is an exception, though: “significant others” and volunteers are exempt.
• Never wear a race event shirt for the (same) race you are about to do. Only rookies do this. It displays a total lack of integrity and might put the bad-heebee-jeebee-mojo on you for the race. Wearing a T-shirt of the race, while currently running said race, is discouraged. It’s like being at work and constantly announcing “I’m at work”. Besides, you wont have the correct post-race shirt then…unless you like to wear sweaty, pitted-out clothes on a regular basis. If you do, then go back to the swamp, Gomer
• Never wear a shirt from a run that you did not finish. To wear a race shirt is to say “I finished it”. Exceptions: see guideline #1.
• No souvenir shirts: therefore, friends or anyone else not associated with the race may not wear a race shirt. If your mom thinks that your Boston shirt is lovely, tell her to QUALIFY for Boston herself, & send in her application early for next year, so she can earn her own shirt.
• Never wear a T-shirt that vastly out-classes the event you’re running. It’s like taking a gun to a knife fight. Or like unleashing an atomic bomb among aboriginal natives. You get the idea.
• Also: never wear a blatantly prestigious T-shirt downtown or at the mall among non-running ilk. People will just think you have a big head, which you do. You’ll also get stupid questions, like, “how long was that marathon?” If it’s a shirt to a 50 or 100-miler, they’ll think it’s a shirt for a cycling event or just think you’re totally nuts, which (of course), you probably are.
• A DNF’er may wear a race shirt if… the letters DNF are boldly written on the shirt in question (using a fat Sharpie or a Marks-A-Lot).

Full List: Proper T-Shirt Etiquette