A Moment for Rememberance

Tomorrow is Memorial Day, a U.S. Federal Holiday that has been observed for the last 143 years to honor of the men and women that have died while in military service. I was a teenager when my Dad served in Vietnam (1967-8) and I'm happy that he returned home safe.

The population of the US is just around 302 million people with 1.7 million serving in the military. Since 2001, there have been 4,563 casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since the American Revolutionary War there have been over 1.3 million casualties.

I'll be taking a moment tomorrow at noon (3pm eastern time) to remember those who served and perished.

Living consciously...

The exercise today was to reframe an event that happened. While the point is to understand that the event itself doesn't change just the interpretation, the bigger challenge is to become that 'half-full glass' type of person in the present.

I've certainly had my share of would have, could have, should have reflections where I'd wished my behavior had been different. Changing how I respond to things - managing the gap between stimulus and response - has been easier since I've been trying to be conscious of being in the moment. It has brought a different perspective to how I interpret things.