I am both humbled and amazed when I mentally glance at the calendar of 2014. I’m filled with anxiety, confidence, gratitude, and hope when I think about a year that has been filled with the greatest personal exploration of my lifetime.

“This is what life should look like,” says my conscience. “Growth and expansion should always be what we’re experiencing.”

On this Thanksgiving Day, I’m thankful for the challenges that have allowed me to have a heart filled with gratitude for what is. I’m thankful that I can reminisce on what was as I continue to stretch into the unknown.

I embrace life’s challenges with confidence, and even a little anxiety, knowing that I am alive. I’m here saying yes and absolutely doing my best to show up as the person I aspire to be.

I remember a conversation I had with myself early in 2014 or was it 2013… I decided that just for this year, I wouldn’t stress and worry, since stress has never helped my body, mind, or sense of peace.Worrying has not solved any problems, made me feel better or brought about the change that’s needed to happen. Just for this year I wasn’t going to worry about things and instead I’d truly trust the process of life. To me this means trust that the Universe is all good. I refer to the Universe as all that exists. Everything is essential to everything. Some folks say that “everything happens for a reason”. I merely want to focus on learning and understanding the reasons and see my life as an opportunity to learn, teach and give thanks for even being here in the first place.

The difference between life and death as I see it is that death is synonymous with done.

Therefore life is about living. Doing creating, preparing and responding. Life respects action, not just thoughts. Life is about feeling the fear and going for it anyway. To remain afraid and not be willing to live “big” is as good as being dead. I believe that our lives must remain inspired and filled with hope. We must continue to always seek out that which is beautiful, and makes us feel good. We must be willing to push a lil harder and love a lil longer and recognize and take responsibility for our own faults in order to create the space for our object of desire to come into reality; or to allow life’s organic process to bring to fruition all that we want need and are ready for, precisely when the time is right.
This year has been a “dream it up and make it happen” experience. I’ve created a structure and support system around me and have people in my corner that keep me accountable.

The Bible says “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” My understanding and translation of this is that we are all God. When we come together as brothers and sisters, we are magnificent creators just like God the creator.

In 2015 I hope that we all work a little more towards coming together with others and agreeing to work in ways that are more loving, more conscientious, more understanding and more compassionate to one another’s challenges and short comings.

Let’s focus on building our mutual dreams together, and not be so attached to every little detail, that we criticize and belittle one another.

This will allow the mutual dream to happen that much quicker.

This will allow events like “Ferguson” to be one of those “back then” events. Life is not so black and white but rather several shades of gray and when we take the time to not make others wrong and instead see where they have been or continue to be small minded and filled with fear, we can forgive them and continue to give thanks for our ability to show them what life, love, and liberty truly looks like.

I subscribe to the philosophy of Science of Mind and know that everything starts as a seed. Life is nothing more than a palette of whatever we dream it to be. The seeds planted in my mind’s eye of the past are either here and now present, they have drifted away and morphed or they are organically emerging in my life as I prepare and give thanks.

The giving thanks means that I recognize and am grateful.

Do these seeds look exactly like I thought they would? Of course not!

Have you ever grown a plant from seed and knew exactly what it would look like beforehand?

Have you ever known someone that was pregnant and you yourself already knew exactly what the baby would look like, act like, and how they would develop their personality?

Are you no less thankful?

I encourage you to be thankful for every experience. Be thankful for life’s challenges that allow you to prove just how big, bad and beautiful you truly can be. Be thankful that you don’t always understand and yet here you are, alive and living. I know many that have taken their own lives or lost them due to various circumstances but you my friend are here. You have the ability to bend rather than break, to take the heat and not burn up. To deal with the process, and people along the way.

I’m thankful for my team and the collective willingness to think and be big. And most of all I’m thankful for you!

Happy Day of Thanksgiving.

Ahmad “Ahmed” Hassan