Day 4 - Gratitude Challenge

For the gratitude challenge today, I am supposed to "write a short message of thanks for some of the "negative" things in my life. This requires me, I suppose, to think of negative things. Hmmm.

Alright, well here goes nothing:

I am grateful for the stress of my Masters program. I am thankful that I have been able to make it work, somehow, and that working full time plus studying in the evenings has proved not only possible, but really quite enjoyable (most of the time). I am grateful for all that I've learned about organization and time management, and most especially, that I have learned how wonderful it is to come home from work and having nothing else to do! I appreciate my relaxing moments even more.

I am also grateful for the strain of my inefficient project group. Although working with this group of people has caused me many sleepless nights and hours of aggravation, I have learned many things about working in a group, and about trust and delegation (or lack thereof) and have learned when to express my feelings and when to keep my frustration to myself. I have also come to understand that I cannot control everyone and that I can't fix everything by simply taking responsibility for all of it.

I am thankful for the distance between me and my friends/family, not because I enjoy being away from them, but because of the amazing opportunities we have had to enjoy each others company in unconventional locations and ways! I have gotten to meet up with friends all over Europe, show them around my hometown of Munich, exchange long emails and groups of facebook photos. My parents came and lived in Augsburg, a neighboring town, for a month, and we had the amazing opportunity of living together in a "foreign" country! I have gotten to witness both my parents working on learning to speak German and adding to their food and experience repertoire. And I always have good stories to share when I come home for a visit.

I have to say that this exercise really helped me "look at the bright side" of things and I am going to try to dissect every problem that comes up by attempting to see things like this. It's hard, but I'm sure I can handle it. What "bright side" do you see in your "negative" things?