I’m thankful for my intelligence. Please, don’t take that as arrogance, for I am well aware that there are many, many people much smarter and more talented than I am. I am simply grateful for the intelligence I do have. I feel like I have a good balance between book smarts, street smarts, wisdom, and common sense. I’m able to learn new skills fairly quickly and can process information fairly well. I can carry on conversations over a wide range of topics and enjoy learning new things. I’m not a specialist in any one area, and in this age of hyper-specialization, that has probably held me back in my career, but I’m thankful to be able to perform fairly well in many different areas, as opposed to being limited to one rigid career-path.
I also don’t need any “news” commentator to tell me what to think or feel about current events, whether it be Keith Olbermann or Bill O’Reilly. I am quite capable of thinking for myself. I can also comprehend that life is full of complex shades of gray, and virtually nothing is as simple as black and white. The more I learn about him, the more I respect Richard Nixon because he was much more dignified and statesman-esque than the cartoonish buffoon that has been painted all these years. Other than his deeply rooted paranoia, probably born from the Cold War, he was a strong leader and a good president who inherited a terrible mess. I believe the same of Bill Clinton. Sure, Faux News and Talk Radio painted him as a radical liberal, but he was much more of a moderate who strove for compromise and cooperation over strict ideology and partisanship. That’s why American companies posted record profits, unemployment shrank, and wages rose during his administration. Everyone prospers from cooperation. I’m grateful for the intelligence to see these complexities, instead of blindly following party propaganda.
Every single morning, I thank my creator for blessing me with the intelligence to be self-sufficient. Few situations arise where I don’t have the intelligence and common sense to develop and follow a plan for overcoming those obstacles. Each day, I encounter a throng of individuals without that capability, people who are dependant on others for their day-to-day existence. On the other end of the spectrum, I’m also smart enough to know my own limitations, which to me is more important than knowing what I can accomplish. Having the wisdom to accept that I don’t know everything and can’t do everything allows me to find assistance from someone who is an expert in that field. I’m thankful to have the intelligence to know both my strengths and limitations.
Knowledge can be a powerful tool, and each and every day of my life, I’m thankful to have a brain that functions fairly well.
Big Owl's Tree 