Why - Two K!

 

As I was looking to see what partially finished blogs I might feel like completing this week I noticed something that surprised me.  You see, there is this little pop-up in blogger that tells you how many posts you have and I just happened to look at it as I was looking at the list of blogs that were in draft status. 

Here's what I saw as I looked:

As of Sunday, the Genuinely Faux blog had 1,998 blog entries published.  That was when I suddenly realized that I was only two entries away from my 2000th blog post.  

Are you kidding me?!?  How in the world did THAT happen?

Oh.  I suppose the big blogging blitz I started when the pandemic was really taking hold might have something to do with it.

I celebrated 1000 posts on October 13, 2017 with a post that highlighted some entertaining words from many of those 1000 entries.  I looked at it and I thought to myself, "Great.... now I have to do some sort of celebratory blog for 2000 posts.  When am I going to find time and energy to do all of that work and figure out what things I should highlight?"

That's when I realized I was going about this all wrong.

We're supposed to celebrate the round numbers, not make work out of them.  Well, actually, we should celebrate any number.  Each time we succeed at something... anything... we should allow ourselves at least a moment to feel a little pleasure that we have accomplished some task.  The round numbers (like 2000) remind us to take a moment to recognize the aggregate of something we have done.  To take some pleasure in the resiliency, tenacity, skill and good fortune that allowed us to accomplish some sort of thing over and over again.

We should recognize and celebrate things like "live another decade together as a married couple" (congratulations Mom & Dad!).  Or to a lesser extent, reaching the number 400 as we were harvesting Thelma Sanders acorn squash on Sunday.

And perhaps reaching 2000 blog entries on this blog today is worth some feelings of accomplishment.

We can celebrate things in many ways.  For example, I took that really neat picture that opened up this blog.  The skies had an almost surreal look to them for most of the day and I just had to capture that image with the bright red roof as contrast.  I celebrated a beautiful day where we were accomplishing good things by capturing a beautiful image.

And our oak friends were painting the sky yet again, giving us contrast so we could better see the depth of the blues and the textures of the clouds.  So, I celebrated that moment as well.

Once I reminded myself that 2000 posts should not mean having to create a blog post I don't feel like creating right now, I suddenly felt much more like celebrating.  I also realized exactly how valuable it can be to let yourself feel a sense of accomplishment.  And, it really doesn't matter how small that accomplishment might be.  It is healthy and good for your well-being to have a sense of accomplishment in your life - whether it is something small (I took a picture on a beautiful day) or a decent-sized accomplishment (2000 blog posts) or something magnificent (like 60 years of marriage).

Here's hoping each of you find at least one thing in your life to celebrate today!