Things to Appreciate

Post Christmas things to be thankful for:

1. Volunteers: People who devote time to the Red Cross, Boys and Girl Scouts, 4H, Rotary, Lions Clubs, the USO, volunteer firefighters and the many, many other organizations that help make the United States an amazing place to live and work. 
2. Hobbyists: Another thing I like is the number of Americans who take time to do things like restoring old cars, set up model railroads, make and run radio controlled cars and airplanes, chunk pumpkins, participate in the Society for Creative Anachronism and the thousands of other activities that make us all more interesting.
3. The all-voluntary military. 
   
4. Engineers: The people who make it work. Mostly in a seamless fashion.
5. Innovators: Having a vision of the how things could be and then acting on it. 
6. Doctors and nurses and the whole medical world. The medical payment system may be a mess, but they are saving more lives that ever and treating things that most of us have never ever heard of until we get it.
7. People who enjoy taking their work seriously. Nothing makes my day more than finding that person who knows what they are doing, enjoys doing what they do and then does it so well that every one they touch with their work feels better.
8. Leaders who understand that leadership is a service,making sure that the people you serve as a leader have the tools and training needed to do their jobs. Leaders who are so good that they live up to Sun Tzu's “A leader leads by example, not by force” 
9. Mistakes you learn from.
10. Children. 
11. A good dog. 
12. Most of all - my wife.