Right now, I’m reading a book called Thanks a Thousand: A Gratitude Journey by A.J. Jacobs and let me just say that this is the book that I have been looking for as I try to be a more grateful person! I mentioned in an earlier post that I am in a leadership book club at work and that we are reading Dear to Lead by Brene Brown. While I got quite a bit out of that book and I enjoyed it, it did seem a little preachy, which I didn’t like. Thanks a Thousand is not preachy in the slightest and it really makes you think about all of the people involved in your daily cup of coffee…literately. A.J. Jacobs tries to thank everyone responsible for making his cup of coffee, which at one point in the book his son decides that it is every person on the planet, and he isn’t very far off. Most of us know that the farm workers in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Columbia that harvest the coffee that we drink are mistreated and not paid even close to what the deserve, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. A.J. talks to the designer of the lids that are put on the cups, the creator of the “java jacket” so you don’t burn your fingers, the people that make the pallets that the giant bags of coffee get shipped on, the lumber suppliers for the pallets, the extermination company that makes sure that the warehouses are free of mice and roaches, he even wrote a passive aggressive email to the CEO of Exxon for supplying the gasoline to the truck drivers that ship the coffee. I’m only about half way through the book now but it makes you really think about all the work that goes into a simple cup of coffee.
Tomorrow my husband is leaving for a few days to go to Omaha and visit his family. It is a last-minute trip so I couldn’t get the time off work, plus my brother is in China right now filming an episode of China’s Got Talent (I’ll go more into that in a later post), but I have to stay and take care of all of our animals. The Midwest just got hit with major flooding that hasn’t been seen for 100 years and my in-laws live on a lake that is fed by the Platte River. Their house is amazing! We got married there 5 years ago when it had just been built. They were forced to evacuate, and the entire downstairs of the house flooded. Thankfully it was built on a hill so when you drive up to it and go in the front door you are actually upstairs. Then when you go down to the basement and open up the backdoor you are at the sand and the lake. I’m not totally sure if Zach will be staying at their house or even if they have moved back in yet. They had to replace all the drywall downstairs and they didn’t have any sort of flood insurance. Thankfully they have money, but to replace carpeting, insulation, electrical, etc. isn’t cheap. I guess what I’m saying here is even though this terrible thing happened, it could have been so much worse, and it was worse for many people living on that lake, so they are very lucky.
One thing that A.J. Jacobs goes into in Thanks a Thousand is that it is difficult to remember all of the misfortunes that we don’t have. How wonderful is that?! There are a ton of awful things that because we don’t deal with them on a regular basis, we aren’t continually reminded of them. He uses the example of arms. He is grateful that he has 2 arms so he can hold books to read, use fingers to type and open doors to coffee shops. While my house could use some work, there is a hole in the carpet in the loft where one of my rabbits got bored and dug through it, the grout in the master bathroom isn’t sealed, and there are tons of pictures that need to be hung, but I have a dry home to go to that keep us all safe and cozy.
After I finish reading Thanks a Thousand I might have more to say about it, and while I don’t think I’ll try to thank a thousand people for a single cup of coffee but I will continue to say thank you to my barista, Uber driver, checker at the grocery store, and I’m going to try to take a minute and see if I can think of more than just those people that are making my life easier and better.
