Publisher's Synopsis
Gratefulness. It's a mouthful of a word; most of us say "gratitude" instead, but the words mean the same thing: To be thankful, and acknowledge a good deed done you by another. These days, gratefulness can be hard to come by. Please and thank you used to be the first and last words in courteous discourse, but in our self-absorbed, busy-busy world, they seem to have gone the way of the pen pal and the pay phone. Some take good deeds for granted; do that enough, and they call you an ingrate. You are ungrateful. Most often, I notice a lack of gratefulness when I let someone make a left turn and they don't give "the wave" in thanks, but you can find it everywhere. If you watch TV (a dangerous activity, if you want to remain grateful) you'll notice that advertisers are constantly telling us all the great things we deserve. Now, there are certain things we agree that everyone deserves. The founders of this country decided to enumerate three of them in the Preamble to the Constitution: namely Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. But others whisper, "Don't you deserve the best?" Well, we work hard, don't we? Why don't we deserve the best? Where's our red carpet? Don't you know who I am? As you can see, it's a dangerous road to start walking. When you deserve something, you don't want to work for it. And anything worth having is worth working hard for. That's one thing I learned from the author of this book. She's one of the hardest working people I know. With accomplishments that to many of us will sound mythological. She doesn't like to toot her own horn, and I'll respect that. You are about to read stories of gratefulness from someone who has achieved great things, even though she was told You Can't from the very beginning. You can't make the Honor Roll. You can't be a U.S. Marine. You can't run an ultra marathon. You can't become a pro fighter. Jody-Lynn proved all those statements wrong. By working hard, focusing on her goals, and never quitting. But she did not do it alone. We have a mythology of success in this country: Everyone succeeds alone. It sure feels that way, once you succeed. Because of all the hard work! But very few succeed without the support of at least one other person, and usually those helpers are so humble they would never step forward to say so. It takes a special, reflective, and strong person to honor the people who encouraged them in their struggle. And Jody-Lynn Reicher is one of them. This book puts her gratefulness in writing.
