Day #100: Thankful

Although I passed Day #100 awhile back, it only seemed appropriate to end this blog on Thanksgiving.

I'll admit, I'm not always a pro when it comes to nailing the ending, but I think this time I got it.

What have I learned after one hundred days of being nice?

It's impossible.

That's right, you heard me, being nice is impossible.

Clearing your head of mean thoughts, refraining from gossiping, never losing your temper, and managing to smile constantly is downright impossible.

At least, for me it is.

I have days when I am a downright jerk, moments where I'm the farthest I can be from the kind of person I want others to see me as, and interactions with people where I'm nothing but cruel.

But after spending more than three months fighting all that with everything I had, I have figured something out:

Nobody changes in one hundred days.

You can blog about it, monologue about it, or make witty videos about it, but the truth is, change takes a lot longer than three months.

When I was younger, I thought "a nice person" was something you grew up to be, like a job--like an astronaut or a zookeeper.

I started this project with that same ridiculous idea. That I could immerse myself in niceness and come out a saint.

It doesn't work that way.

I'm still a work in progress...

...But I made progress.

Some really good progress, I think.

I'm a little bit more patient.
I'm a little bit less nasty.
I understand a little bit more about myself and others.

And mostly, I'm a lot more thankful.

That's why I wanted to end the blog on Thanksgiving.

Because the main thing I learned was that I have an awful lot of people who put up with me whether I'm a sweetheart or a tyrant or a whiner or an angel or just...me.

I have people in my life who are willing to let me progress and mess up and start all over again.

And for that, I'm thankful.

Nicer? Maybe.

But definitely thankful.