My birthday falls on Thanksgiving this year (anyone looking for a last minute gift, cash or gift cards to the Home Depot are welcome), and to celebrate, I’m going to reprise something for the blog that many of us did on Facebook last year.  Each day, I will center my blog around something in my life I am thankful for.  In this manner, I will attempt to be more grateful for the many blessings in my life.  Hopefully, this series will provide a little positivity and inspiration to your day.

I’m thankful for all the times in my life that I’ve stumbled and fallen.  From each failure, I’ve learned a valuable lesson, and these moments have made me the person I am today.  From my failures, I’ve learned humility, and from humility, I’ve learned compassion.  I’m grateful to be the kind of man who cares about other people and their lives, instead of a predator who looks for opportunities to mistreat my fellow man, and I like who I am on this first day of November 2010.

From my failures, I’ve also learned to appreciate my successes more deeply.  I have always been my own worst critic, but as I’m maturing a little, I’m learning to appreciate my good points, and hopefully not in a vain, egotistical manner, either.  I simply now recognize that I have accomplished a lot in my life, and even though I’m not financially where I want to be or as established in my career as I would’ve liked, I’ve come a long way from where I started.  Without the stumbles, I might not be able to see this.

Finally, my failures have given me strength.  Each time I’ve hit I’ve ground, I’ve had to look deep inside to find something to help me get back up, and each time, I’ve found a piece of myself that I hadn’t seen before.  Without having gone through the failures, I wouldn’t know what’s inside, so I am thankful for all of the moments in my life where I have been knocked down because they have given me the strength to stand.