Page 185 - Resources and Support for the Online Educator

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Gratitude

On January 1, 2012, a young man named
Brian Doyle and two of his friends had a near miss
with a wrong-way driver. One year later, Brian shared
his story at the TEDxYouth@SanDiego 2013 event. He
explained that this near accident impacted his life in an
unexpected way: For nearly a year he thought about
people in his life and ways they had influenced him.
Then, over the 2012 Thanksgiving holiday, he decided
to say thank you to one person every day for the next
365 days. He began the next day. From his best friend
to former classmates and teachers, from his parents
and other family members to people he barely knew,
Brian took the time to say thank you. He learned many
lessons from saying thank you, but one of the most
important was that people do not know how much they
are appreciated by others—especially if no one ever tells
them. He also reported that his focus shifted to looking
for the positives in every day instead of the negative
(Doyle, 2014).

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Pathways to Well-Being: Helping Educators (and Others) Find Balance in a Connected World 185