Stop the Presses: Gratitude remains despite deadline crush

The Springfield Business Journal staff will be taking an extra day off this week as we close our office on both Thursday and Friday for a four-day Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

The day-after-Thanksgiving break from our newspaper production schedule is becoming a tradition with us here at SBJ despite the fact that it means less time to sell, less time to write and take photos, and less time to make advertising and page layouts in preparation for printing. Then, of course, there's less time to plan for the next week.

But maybe, just maybe, if we have been very, very good, we will have a little bit more time to cuddle up around the family hearth.

By Christmas we'll be starting to catch up again, but then comes New Year's Day. Those holidays fall on Wednesdays this season, so deadlines all during December will be a real treat.

If it sounds like I'm being ungrateful in the midst of this season of gratitude, I want to assure you that such is not the case at all. I thrive on drop-dead deadlines, and I suspect that you do, too. After all, deadlines mean that we have important work to do, work that matters to other people and to ourselves.

Many of you, like the SBJ staff, spend the waning weeks of the year in the strategic planning process for your organization.

It's grueling, it's gut-wrenching, and it can even be gruesome in its autopsy-like examination of the year past.

Our real gratitude comes when it's over, and we realize that in the process of carving out our work and our companies, we have also shaped our lives in this community here in southwest Missouri.

I am struck once again with the truth of the aphorism that "It is the journey, not the destination, that really matters." We come to recognize, too, the significance of our accomplishments, the real strides that have been made.

Year after year, around Thanksgiving time, I find increasing wealth in my at-work gratitude list.

In truth, I increasingly find that the only real relaxation comes after the expenditure of real work.

Work brings us in close contact with people we care about, and we care about them more and more as the days go by and as the circle of friends grows wider and wider.

The SBJ staff and the friends and associations that we have made as we go about our work are blessings in our lives, and I am truly grateful.

Last weekend, I rode my bicycle along the sun-dappled path of the Galloway Trail out of Sequiota Park along Ozarks Greenways.

My peddling seemed effortless.

And earlier this week, I walked across Park Central Square as fallen leaves blew before me on the bricks, but the breeze was mild and fresh.

My steps were easy and free. Both experiences were moments of recognition, recognition of the great gifts that we enjoy here in Springfield. Our lives are privileged, and I am grateful.

Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy your well-earned day of rest.