Take advantage of opportunities to share your wisdom.

Take Pen to Paper: Edition 57 - This time my conversation in the grocery was about cultivating a virtue.

“People aren’t in awe of your sharp mind? So be it. But you have many other qualities you can’t claim to have been deprived of at birth. Display then those qualities in your own power: honesty, dignity, endurance, chastity, contentment, frugality, kindness, freedom, persistence, avoiding gossip, and magnanimity.” -Marcus Aurelius.

Hi Readers!

This is the last October Pen to Paper! Can you believe that?

October ends with a favorite holiday for many. Halloween!👻 And I have a treat for you below.

In this newsletter:

1. A story about taking advantage of opportunities.

2. Consciously choosing to change.

3. Plan for change and take action.

4. A treat for you.

A Story About Opportunity

Do you take advantage of the opportunities life throws at you?

Yesterday, I demonstrated and shared a virtue.

It started when my simple, no-fail plan failed. What could go wrong with stopping at the grocery on the way to my son’s house for the missing ingredient to my vegetable tray?

I chose the smaller grocery closest to my neighborhood, knowing this grocery had no self-checkouts. I would walk straight to produce, grab a bag of carrots, and head to checkout. It would take five minutes max.

My plan did not work. The store was busier than I thought it would be. All the lines were long. The one express checkout line trailed off down the grocery aisle.

I chose a line with three people and stood behind a young man buying one energy drink. He was obviously in the same predicament as me.

After standing with my bag of carrots for a few minutes, energy-drink man turned to start a conversation. I prepared for a complaint. To my surprise, he wasn’t irritated at the delay. He told me how he came to this store every day to buy his energy drink. He was surprised to see it so busy.

As you know, I don’t hesitate to participate in friendly conversation, so I agreed with him, and I added, “This gives us an opportunity to practice patience. After all, our patience never improves if we don’t practice it.”

His response surprised me. “I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

Is it possible that I am finally old enough to have some wisdom? And lucky me got to share it. What an unforeseen opportunity!

Consciously choosing to change.

I did not choose to change when I started journaling gratitude.

I wish I could say I did, but as I’ve said before, I was a defiant journaler at first. It wasn’t until after I journaled gratitude for a month that I realized I had changed. Practicing gratitude made me more grateful.

Practice works with all of the virtues.

It is fair to say I have been practicing courage whenever I go on outings alone. I’ve told you how it’s one of my least favorite activities. Maybe someday I will think it is as easy as gratitude.

Do you feel you need more of a virtue? Or maybe you are often told by others you are lacking a virtue? Make a conscious effort to increase it through practice.

Ryan Holiday reminds us in the The Daily Stoic, “Aren’t the traits that are the result of effort and skill more impressive anyway?”

Do you have a plan for change?

If you have a plan, you are more likely to change successfully.

Increasing a virtue is similar to forming a habit. Practice needs to be planned and consistent. You will know what to do if you have a plan to follow. Responding to opportunities “out in the wild,” so to speak, can be your extra practice. Soon, your default behavior will be to show and share your virtue.

For each way I am trying to be a better person, I have a plan. In case you are wondering, I’m not tackling all 24 character strengths (virtues).

One at a time is plenty.

A Treat For You

If you made it this far, I should probably send you a full-size candy bar.

Instead of that, I have created a free gratitude template for you to either:

• start a gratitude practice

• stretch your gratitude practice

The template is 31 topics and example sentences for gratitude. Thirty-one topics will get you through each day in any month. Isn’t November a great time to start?

I’ve said it several times, gratitude brought me more than I imagined, so it’s natural for me to recommend it.

I love having a guide and examples when I take on a new endeavor. That’s what I hope this is for any who would like to use it. There are three ways to access the template.

1. Access and make a copy of this Google Document

The Daily Gratitude Habit Jumpstart

2. Go to The Daily Gratitude Jumpstart by clicking this link https://sgsabel.gumroad.com/l/DailyGratitudeHabitJumpstart. Or enter it into your browser.

   When you scroll down the page, you should see this (without my red mark):

   

   In the “Name a fair price” box I marked in red, put the numeral “0” because this is free! You provide your email, and a copy will be sent to you to download.

3. You can also access Gumroad through my website, takepentopaper.com where you will find a link to the site described above.

Hopefully, I will have at least one reader try each method to make sure I did everything correctly on my end. 🤞(If using technology was a virtue, it would be greatly lacking in me.) If you have any problems, let me know.

I will post the above in my newsletter throughout November. Remember, the template is not month-specific. Use it any time.

A little good I spotted on a walk. Photo by S.G.S. Abel

7 Days, 7 Thoughts on Gratitude and Good:

1. Lawrence Yeo writes and illustrates the “More to That” newsletter. When I read these words he wrote, I wished I had written them. “Gratitude is what allows you to feel that same sense of wonderment about your day-to-day life as you would if you were walking the streets of a faraway city.” 🚶‍♀️

2. Maybe you have gratitude down to an art, or it’s not your thing. I have shared this sight before, but you may be interested again in The 24 Character Strengths and their definitions.

3. When Peter Tennis joined the writing cohort I’m in, this was one of his first essays posted. Seeing opportunities is like seeing good; the more you practice looking for it, the easier it becomes. 👀

4. Once again, Matt Hogan hits the mark with this post on opportunities. Some opportunities come from a matter of perspective. 💐

5. I’m grateful for the opportunities to practice change and influence others to do the same.

6. A quote: “The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself…that’s where it’s at.” - Jesse Owens 🥇

7. In the spirit of Halloween, if you want to plan a last-minute trip to a haunted hotel, check out this list. 👻🏨👻

Thank you for reading, dear friends!

I hope you are inspired to share some wisdom when the opportunity presents itself. Or, perhaps, you need to open yourself up to wisdom. Either is a good action to take.

💚

Susan

I would love to know your thoughts if you access my gratitude template. Leave me a comment.

As always, please share with anyone you think would enjoy this newsletter. My template is free to everyone. All they need is to access it through one of the three ways above.