DJ’s Motivational Mondays | Fireworks and Gratefulness

As we celebrate this month the foundation of our country with fireworks, Barbecue, and festivities, I like to focus on the pride I feel in how great our country has become and how grateful I am to live in the United States of America. 

John Adams, one of our founding fathers and second President, was adamant we celebrate our Independence from one end of the continent to the other with “guns, bonfires, and illuminations” as a morale booster.  As I drove around my hometown on Thursday evening, I saw so many people lining the streets setting up to watch the fireworks.  There were cars and trucks everywhere, in medians of highways and on the sides of roads with barbeque grills, corn hole games, music playing waiting for the 9:15pm start of the show.  It is such a great feeling to see people, young and old share in the gratefulness of what we have in America.

To be grateful is a feeling of appreciation, kindness and thankfulness.  When we feel a sense of indebtedness or appreciation for anything, we should let those who we feel that towards know it.  This is a learned behavior and must be taught to generation after generation since our human nature is to focus on our individual needs and wants.  When people have helped us meet personal or corporate goals and needs, we must show them how grateful we are to them for their help or sacrifice.  As Americans, we benefit from so many sacrifices made by our ancestors, military service men, first responders, and people who have passed on the spirit of hope and dreams so many other countries do not have bestowed to them.  I think John Adams was referring to a type of celebration including a showing of pride and gratefulness on Independence Day; that we all stand together to watch the parades and fireworks that symbolize how grateful we are to have the life we have here in America. 

We all play our own part in how this country progresses, and all our efforts team up to create the greatness or the lack there of at times, but this is the United States of America, the land of the free, which we should all be grateful.  Here is to the Red, White and Blue!