Entries For: January 2012

This week's guest blogger is Anne Ashbey Pierotti.  She's the new executive director of the Ashland Independent Film Festival and if you're not met her, you must.  She's brilliant, a marketing expert, social media wiz and great human being.  Being appointed executive director of AIFF allowed Anne to blend her avocation and her vocation.  We're lucky enough to have her on our board.  Here she is on gratitude.

Gratitude

 What an incredible year it’s been for our United Way! As you read in Dee Anne’s holiday post, the accomplishments this year are impressive to say the least. Add to that an incredibly successful campaign which will exceed it’s target – and we are well positioned to continue this good work into 2012. Way to Live United, Rogue Valley!

 The spirit of generosity and compassion that is evident in these success stories is what drives my own involvement in United Way. Whether through HOPE Chest or CAN, WiLL or Day of Caring, I feel blessed to have come to know many of the individuals whose tireless efforts make this work possible. Thank you for inspiring and educating me, and reaching a helping hand to those in need.

 For my annual blog reflection, I offer this video meditation on Gratitude from award-winning cinematographer Louis Schwartzberg, presented at TEDxSF: http://youtu.be/gXDMoiEkyuQ. It’s worth ten minutes of your time, and I hope it inspires you to make every day of the coming year a good day.

From Schwartzberg's Ted talk, “You think this is just another day in your life. It's not just another day. It's the one day that is given to you – today. It's given to you. It's a gift. It's the only gift you have, right now. And the only appropriate response is gratefulness. If you do nothing else but to cultivate that response, that unique gift that this day is; if you learn to respond as if it were the first day of your life, and the very last day, then you will have spent this day very well.

 Begin by opening your eyes and be surprised that you have eyes you can open, that incredible array of colors that is constantly offered to us, for pure enjoyment. Look at the sky. We so rarely look at the sky. We so rarely note how different it is from moment to moment with clouds coming and going. We just think of the weather, and even of the weather we don’t think of the all the many nuances of weather, we just think of good weather and bad weather. This day, right now, has unique weather, maybe a kind that will never exactly in that form come again. The formation of clouds in the sky will never be the same as it is right now. Open your eyes, look at that.
Look at the faces of people whom you meet. Each one has an incredible story behind their face, a story that you could never fully fathom, not only their own story, but the story of their ancestors. They all go back so far. And in this present moment, on this day, all the people you meet, all the life from generations and from so many places all over the world, flows together and meets you here, like a life giving water if you only open your heart and drink.
Open your heart to the incredible gifts that civilization gives to us. You flip a switch and there's electric light. You turn a faucet and there's warm water and cold water, and drinkable water, it's a gift that millions and millions in the world will never experience.
These are just a few of an enormous number of gifts to which we can open your heart, and so I wish you that you will open your heart to all these blessings, and let them flow through you, that everyone whom you will meet on this day will be blessed by you, just by your eyes, by your smile, by your touch, just by your presence. Let the gratefulness overflow into blessing all around you.
And then it will really be a good day.”

Thanks Anne!  Onward to a really good day!