Gratitude Journal #11

Apparently, you can train your brain to be happier by keeping a gratitude journal, so I am giving it a go. My goal is post about 100 things I am grateful for over the course of the year. (This should average out to just a little over 2/week.) However, I am going to try and stay away from the standard family/friends/pets. Please know I absolutely am grateful for my family, friends, and pets. I would not have made it through the past couple of year without each of them. But if I am trying to train myself to be happier, then I want to start recognizing the smaller things in life that I am grateful for.

It has been a pretty good week. The crud I had a few weeks ago is still hanging on, in that I still have a cough, and if I talk for any length of time, my voice sounds like it is about to go, though I have not lost it yet.
There was also a pretty big announcement at work, that our Chair will not be seeking reappointment when his term ends this summer. Due to other transitions happening in the college (the Dean is also not seeking reappointment for his term, which also ends this summer), that means it is likely we will have an interim Chair for at least a year, as we wait for a new Dean to get it, and possibly longer, as other departments will also be having Chair changes at this time.

So what am I grateful for this week?

Gratitude entry #22 – A good relationship with my boss
The Chair is my boss, and I have been very lucky over the past 5 years to have enjoyed a really great relationship with him. He came and told me about his decision not to continue on (we had been talking about it for a lot of this academic year already) before he made the announcement to faculty and staff.
And there is a lot to be done in his last 6 months in the position. I am looking forward to helping with that work as it develops an urgency that was not there before. (Very little important work tends to get done while an interim is in place.) In addition, I will be working with him to make sure we have a good transition plan to whoever the Provost and Dean decide to appoint as interim Chair, and I also know he will have my back as I do everything I can to minimize the impact of the transition on staff.
Last time our department had a Chair change, the Administrator (my role), and the Director of Academic Services also left, so there was a huge leadership vacuum, and it created a really stressful time for staff. My main goal is to assure staff that I am not going anywhere, and that they are not going to have to live through such uncertainty this time. I know my current Chair will be supportive of that.

Gratitude entry #23 –Plans with friends
Somehow, our calendar got really busy, or at least mine did, especially now that I have accountability group every other Sunday. This is great, though it does feel odd to me after a couple years of pretty much always being available. But since my last gratitude entry, we have gone to breakfast and a movie with one very good friend, had dinner with a couple of others, and made dinner plans for three other occasions. And we have plans tomorrow with other friends.
I love plans with friends. First, I love seeing our friends. They are amazing people and spending time with them is always good. We have a great time and leave feeling more happily connected with our world. But I also love the act of MAKING plans with friends. Sometimes it is hard because schedules get so busy and convoluted, but there is this element of pleasant anticipation that is great.
Actually seeing our friends, spending time with them is the best. But being able to look forward to seeing them is also pretty great.