gratitude | Craig T. Owens

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Biodegradable Words

September 7, 2009 — Craig T. Owens

The day has been a good one so far: There’s been a lot of traffic through the store, all of the employees showed up for their shifts on time, and the manager is feeling great. Then because of one complaint from a finicky customer, the whole day seems to crumble.

The day has been a good one so far: You got up on time, found the right outfit to wear, got to school on time, smiled at your classmates, and got right down to business. Then a teacher points out a mistake you made yesterday, and your whole afternoon becomes gloomy.

Usually that’s all it takes. Just one complaint, one correction, one unkind word, one angry look, one unfriendly email. Just one, and it’s hard to remember any of the good stuff which happened earlier. Just one, and the rest of the day seems so hard to bear.

That’s because good words are biodegradable. Kind words break down faster than unkind words. Compliments are quickly erased by complaints.

“One of the commodities in life that most people can’t get enough of is compliments. The ego is never so intact that one can’t find a hole in which to plug a little praise. But, compliments by their very nature are highly biodegradable and tend to dissolve in hours or days after we receive them—which is why we can always use another.” —Phyllis Theroux

Here’s how you can help today. It might take a couple of extra minutes, but the results are so worth it! Give three compliments today.

Tell the barista at your coffee shop how much you appreciate her smile every morning.
Mention to the building custodian how nice he keeps the office looking.
Say “thanks” to the band for playing one of your favorite songs.
Compliment your kids for doing their homework without you having to ask them.
Thank your school teacher for her informative lesson.
Tell your supervisor you appreciate their extra effort.

It’s not hard to find something to compliment about anyone. Your compliment may be just the antidote they need to counteract a complaint that has gotten them down. And when you treat others this way, you can be sure that compliments will be coming your way too!

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: complaints, compliments, ego, Golden Rule, Gospel of Matthew, gratitude, Phyllis Theroux, quote, thankfulness, vocabulary. 6 Comments »

Turtle On A Fencepost

July 9, 2009 — Craig T. Owens

My evening visitor

My studies last night were interrupted by some commotion on my front lawn. Neighborhood kids playing in our yard is nothing new (I’m usually the one outside instigating all of the noise!), but this just sounded different. There was a buzz of excitement. I glanced out the window and saw a rather large turtle in my front yard and several kids gathered around it.

I went outside to see my new visitor. After getting the kids to stand back we watched as the turtle made her journey all the way to the garden next to my house. She sat in the garden for a few minutes and then made a big u-turn. Across the street from my house is a wetland preserve and I was sure that was where she was returning. Most of the kids had gotten bored watching this slowpoke and were off doing other things, but a couple of boys and I watched the turtle as she headed for the road.

When she reached the edge of the road she waited. And waited. And waited.

Once she ventured her front two legs onto the pavement only to feel the vibration of an oncoming car. She quickly pulled her head, all four legs, and her tail into her protective shell.

I decided to intervene. I picked her up and carried her safely across the road. Even before I could set her down in front of the marshy area, she already had her legs fully extended and was “walking” in the air, anxious to get back home. I place her on the ground and watched her disappear under the raspberry vines and into the cattails.

And then I heard it. <CLUNK!>

I pushed back the prickly vines to check on her. What I saw was just the underside of my turtle. She had fallen off the edge of a drainage pipe and was laying flat on her back.

Helpless!

I braved the briars of the raspberry vines and the biting mosquitoes to climb down into the drainage pipe and flip her right side up. Immediately her short little legs carried her farther into the wetlands. Home at last!

As I walked back home I thought about a quote I heard once, “If you see a turtle on top of a fence post, you know it had some help.”

In so many areas of my life, I’ve been helped. Whether across dangerous “roads” or lifted out of places where I was flat-on-my-back stuck, others have lifted me and carried me. Today I’m going to contact a couple of those lifters to say “Thanks!”

Maybe you should, too. Aren’t there a few lifters and carriers you could thank today?

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: encouragement, gratitude, help, lifters, quote, thanks, turtle. 3 Comments »

Homemade = Heartmade

June 22, 2009 — Craig T. Owens

God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say “I love you”?

My favorite Father’s Day gifts are the homemade, personalized cards that my children make for me. Throughout the years I’ve kept a number of those close to me as bookmarkers or framed reminders on my desk. To me homemade = heartmade.

Yesterday one of my children gave me a card which had this heart-tugging line: “I love you so very because you love me.” And then there was this P.S.: “Don’t stop loving.”

On Father’s Day or Mother’s Day or birthdays, it seems easy to express our love. After a hospital stay or a near-death experience, it seems required to express our love. And that’s as it should be. But what about all the “normal” days in between?

I believe one of the greatest gifts I can give my family is a personalized, “heartmade” gift that tells the recipient that I’m thinking about them. In other words, I need to be actively and deliberately finding ways to express my heartmade love to those close to me every day.

Of the 86,400 seconds I have today, it will only take me a few seconds to:

Text “I love you”
Give a gentle squeeze or love pat as they walk by
Jot a quick note to pack in someone’s lunch
Buy their favorite candy as I’m checking out of the store
Stick a friendly Post-It note message to their bathroom mirror
Start or end their day with a hug

As Gertrude Stein wrote, “Silent gratitude isn’t very much use to anyone.”

Don’t make those close to you GUESS you love them, make sure they KNOW you love them. It only takes a second or two.

How will you use your 86,400 seconds today?

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: birthday, Father's Day, Gertrude Stein, gratitude, homemade, Mother's Day, near-death, quote, relationships. Leave a Comment »

The Carbon Monoxide Of Anxiety

November 30, 2008 — Craig T. Owens

Carbon monoxide can poison our bodies and our emotions

Our human red blood cells have a unique protein that carries life-promoting oxygen throughout our bodies. Hemoglobin binds to both oxygen (O2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) in a way that holds them “loosely” so that they can be released at just the right place and time in our bodies.

Carbon monoxide (CO) is the enemy of this respiration process. CO binds to hemoglobin 240 times more firmly than oxygen and CO2. With the CO so firmly attached to the hemoglobin, O2 and CO2 cannot be exchanged properly in our bodies. In other words, CO hijacks the respiration process. The sneaky thing is that CO is odorless, tasteless, and colorless, so it’s subtle poisoning. It simply brings about a lethargy that deepens into death.

As we move past Thanksgiving Day, I believe that a similar process can take place in our emotional lives. Thankfulness is the “oxygen” of our souls, and anxiety is the “carbon monoxide.”

In Philippians 4:6 Paul says, “Do not be anxious about anything,” where he is echoing the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:25: “Do not worry about your life.” Anxiety and worry can begin to dominate our emotional life: they bind so tightly that thankfulness and gratitude are forced out. This leads to emotional lethargy, and—if not corrected quickly—emotional deadness.

The cure for carbon monoxide poisoning is to twofold: (1) remove the victim from the toxic environment, and (2) give the victim pure oxygen to breathe. The same cure holds true for emotional CO poisoning—(1) Get out of that environment: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Philippians 4:6); and (2) get the pure emotional oxygen: Philippians 4:8 gives us the checklist for the pure oxygen of our emotional thought life: “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.“

If you find yourself sighing, or emotionally drained, or even depressed, it could be that the carbon monoxide poisoning of anxiety has snuck in. Get out of that toxic environment by praying and giving thanks to God, and then guard against future hijack attempts by breathing deeply on the things which are pure and lovely and excellent.