Hi candybear,
I like McDonald40's image of a ripple on a pond...the impact of even a tiny break in the surface can travel far and wide beyond what you can see. What you do every day pays it forward in so many ways. Your job is one that does not provide you with a lot of feedback in the way that mine does. That's hard. Can you try to take pleasure and satisfaction in the *process* of life and work and not so much on the outcome? Because it's in the living that we are here, not in the sum total. At least that is how I look at it.

And to give you an example of one of your ripples...your nudge to me about messing up your name in my reply to you called to my attention how much I've been operating on autopilot lately...and how it's letting me down. That's always a red flag. I appreciated your gentle way of calling me on it. If you had just ignored it and I had noticed it later, I would have been even more mortified, and I might be even more stressed and overwhelmed. Now, I can try to nip it in the bud. So I thank you for that.

I hope as your birthday approaches you reflect on more ripples of which you are aware, and you also take pleasure in knowing that in your life process there are countless others of which you will never know...but know they are still there, still rippling.

gg