Alice Herz-Sommer is 108 and a survivor of both WWI and the Death Camps of WWII but I read an article about her that said,
"Today, living in a cozy one-room flat in London, Alice is contented with life, and still smiling. She sticks to her daily routine with ferocious discipline, starting her piano at 10am sharp. “I have trouble moving these two fingers,” she says smiling, slightly embarrassed. She was swimming daily up to the age of 97. She also reads every day, holding a giant magnifying glass. She takes long walks daily, shunning both walker and hearing aid, and still cooks for herself. “If Hitler could have heard me playing my music I’m sure he would have been a better man.”
At 108, Alice is still witty and coherent, even flirtatious, with a ready laugh. When asked the secret to her long life, Alice responds, “in a word: optimism. I look at the good. When you are relaxed, your body is always relaxed. When you are pessimistic, your body behaves in an unnatural way. It is up to us whether we look at the good or the bad. When you are nice to others, they are nice to you. When you give, you receive.” Even at her advanced age, Sommers’ joy for living still shines through “I have lived through many wars and have lost everything many times… Yet, life is beautiful, and I have so much to learn and enjoy. I have no space nor time for pessimism and hate.” Alice is not afraid of death, she says “when I die I can have a good feeling. I believe I lived my life the right way.”
That and the fact that I have been thinking of November being our Thanksgiving has made me decide to use my daily photo/journal to focus on the gifts that I have in my life. I don't know if anyone else wants to participate but I will be tagging thankful4 and following these themes
Monday - Past things I've been blessed by - using older pictures
Tuesday - Natural gifts
Wednesday - Man made treasures
Thursday - Family Traditions
Friday - Why I love being me
Saturday - People I'm lucky to have touch my life
Sunday - Future Dreams
because honestly I tend to bog down in the complaining and why I don't love being me too much. And secondly, I have a ton of older memories and pictures I want to share a bit
So if you are with my, I would be delighted and if you're on your own journey drop by and see my blessing and share yours.
This sounds like it might be a blessing to me - I don't always complain but I notice that I tend to have a woe is me attitude sometimes and fail to focus on the positive and the blessings.
Great Idea Dixie but I started a Nominate 4 November challenge a few days ago and I will be doing that one in November.
Look forward to seeing some of these 'thankful4' shots though.
Great idea Dixie & thanks for tagging me. My post each day are the treasures I find around me & the things I thankful for, being a cancer survivor I try to find the little things in everyday. ( : Have fun with your challenge & I look forward to seeing the 'thankful4' shots.
I'm following Bulldog's Nominate4November challenge, but I join you for a week like I did Nicole's rainbow in October in my second album. It looks like you're going to have a good response.
I think Thanksgiving tends to get over- looked with preparations for Christmas. So I think this will be a wonderful way to pause each day and remember the things I am thankful for. I also need a little boost in the picture taking dept. these days. Thanks for including me! I look forward to seeing everyone's shots!
I am not certain if I will do this challenge or not. However, I was thinking of doing blessings photos for November. I will think about doing the November Thankful4challenge.
Count me in too! We all could show more graditude for the simple things in our lifes that we take for granted! This photo challenge could do just that!
i was looking at the dates. there are 5 fridays next month. that means 5 posting of why i love being me. while i do love being me, five postings about me is a bit too much, so i will make a switcharoo by making saturdays the "why i love being me' and on the 5 fridays i will pay tribute to the 'people i'm lucky to have touched my life'. thank you, dixie!
@summerfield@pandorasecho -- I agree with the subject focusing on me. However, it will work great if I focus on what I love about my life instead. It's still about me.;-)
Since we are putting in older pictures, I will be including some scattered throughout the month because so much of what I am thankful for today is because of the past. I'm looking forward to doing this challenge. :-)
Happy Halloween! Looking forward to trying a month of gratitude, and I thought I'd start a day early by saying I'm really grateful for my 365 project friends who are trying the challenge too.
I think it will be fun. I did a year long daily posting of what I was thankful for a couple years ago. Every day I had to find one thing and put it into one sentence and post it on FB. Some days were quite challenging and others presented too many things to chose from. This is an opportunity to get creative with photos for one month only. I am really not good with interpretation type thinking so it will be a challenge but I will mix old with new photos to create a full look at what I am about this month.
Dixie. I will try to do this as much as possible. Sometimes I have problems with interpretation, but I'll play along. I'm also looking at the nominated-4-november list, but don't think I"m up for two challenges this month. So, I'll try to see how they overlap. Thanks for including me.
I think the Friday's theme, Why I love being me is the hardest one for me, an why I came up with this. There are many reasons I should be glad for who I am, but many times I spend more time battling depression and wishing I were different somehow.
Yesterday on facebook, I saw something that seemed really true. "We judge ourselves so harshly because we are comparing our rough draft to everyone else's highlights reel"
Thanks for tagging me - this seems like a worthy idea. We don't have Thanksgiving here in Finland, but I do know the tradition. :) Good luck to all of you who are going to give this wonderful theme a go, I'm sure it'll give you a new perspective on your life. :) I won't do a whole month of this, but I might do a few days at some point, because the idea really is good.
So I started this great theme but I had a blond moment and started it on the first not paying any attention to the days of the week I'm just going to continue down the list but I'm going to be off on what days it is on :( will this make a difference other than making me look nuts? LOL @pandorasecho
@gprosper26 No, actually I started to do he same thing LOL! I uploaded the picture of my brother and I for thankful for the past on the 1st, and then just changed the topic I wrote about and used the same picture once I went, Oh Duh! It was a Thursday. So I guess I'm just thankful that making mistakes in such things is just a bit of a laugh and no one gets hurt.
I still haven't posted a sunday picture! Because I am in this strange point of my life where I feel like I've finished most of the things on my bucket list but I need new goals! So I have been a Mom, but the kids are grown, 30 year of marriage, still good , but future and present and past, how different will they be? where I have been, europe, asia, central America, but now I'm comfortable in the same house for 16 years. Teaching already for 23 years, a book or 3 published. But this Future Idea, at 49 I'm too young to have no new stars to reach for so I'm thinking.
@pandorasecho --- It seems to me this challenge, for November, is waking up things inside of you that you were not aware of until now. I know when I committed to doing this that I had some ideas but then not really. I had done the FB project which was life changing for me and I knew that I wouldn't have problems finding things to be thankful for but it was keeping within the boundries that seemed hard.
I don't know about you but everyday I wonder if I today will be the day I don't have a picture. Every day. Yet, everyday, something works. So, I put my faith in knowing that and I'm finding so many things that would work. Even my family is helping me. I think they really enjoy hearing about the positive and honest things that are important to me.
I like your quote, too. In order for our photo projects to work, we must look inward for the inspiration more than outward because there is where we will find our best work. We each have our own story. This challenge, I think, is helping everyone to see that fact. We all have things to be thankful for and when we take the moment to really listen to ourselves we know what is important. You are doing a great job. :-)
"We judge ourselves so harshly because we are comparing our rough draft to everyone else's highlights reel"
@dmortega Wow! Thank you for what you wrote. Sometimes I get feeling sorry for myself because the people In my family don't really get my love of words and pictures. This is really making me see that it is OK because they do get me, they love me and here I have found friends who have the same interests In those areas so that is a great discovery.
I started a thread for the holiday challenge I will be doing next month and just wanted to make sure you have a chance to consider doing it with me. I posted it over the weekend and it's already gotten buried. Hopefully I haven't missed tagging everyone here. ;-)
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Look forward to seeing some of these 'thankful4' shots though.
Happy Halloween! Looking forward to trying a month of gratitude, and I thought I'd start a day early by saying I'm really grateful for my 365 project friends who are trying the challenge too.
Yesterday on facebook, I saw something that seemed really true. "We judge ourselves so harshly because we are comparing our rough draft to everyone else's highlights reel"
I don't know about you but everyday I wonder if I today will be the day I don't have a picture. Every day. Yet, everyday, something works. So, I put my faith in knowing that and I'm finding so many things that would work. Even my family is helping me. I think they really enjoy hearing about the positive and honest things that are important to me.
I like your quote, too. In order for our photo projects to work, we must look inward for the inspiration more than outward because there is where we will find our best work. We each have our own story. This challenge, I think, is helping everyone to see that fact. We all have things to be thankful for and when we take the moment to really listen to ourselves we know what is important. You are doing a great job. :-)
"We judge ourselves so harshly because we are comparing our rough draft to everyone else's highlights reel"
I started a thread for the holiday challenge I will be doing next month and just wanted to make sure you have a chance to consider doing it with me. I posted it over the weekend and it's already gotten buried. Hopefully I haven't missed tagging everyone here. ;-)
http://365project.org/discuss/themes-competitions/15024/december-holiday-challenge#comment-448031