Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. I am going to use this platform not to complain about the few crazy patients I have. I am not going to complain about the one out of 100 material problems I have. I am not going to call out people that have ticked me off in one way or the other. I am going to use this platform to be, well, thankful.

With the risk of sounding too much like Tim Tebow (who is kicking butt lately), I would like to thank God for choosing me and sending His son to earth to save me. I thank Him for blessing me with most of what I am thankful for.

I am thankful for my wife. We just celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary last week, and I love and respect her more and more every year. She is my best friend (even though I don't act like it sometimes), and I love being her husband.

I am thankful for my awesome, healthy, smart-aleck kids. They are the apples of my eye. I can say that I don't think I could love kids any more than I do. And being a dad allows me to see a glimpse of the love that the Lord has for me. I am thankful for my extended family. I have two brothers and two sisters, a mom and step-dad, and a dad and step-mom (oh yeah, a Jerry Springer show waiting to happen) that are very meaningful in my life and my kids’ lives.

I am thankful for the ability to do dentistry. I love dentistry and love doing dentistry more than I ever have. I feel terrible for people that "love dentistry but hate being a dentist." I have been there and am very thankful that I am not there now. I am thankful to my dad for being an awesome partner and I am thankful for the practice that we have together. I appreciate having him in my life and walking alongside of him.

I can say that I am not only a dentist, but I am still here 50 hours a week. I am thankful for the friends that I call my staff. They make my work fun (most of the time). I like coming to work, and that has a lot to do with us liking each other and having the common goal of helping people.

I am thankful for my health. I can still do dentistry that allows me to make the money to have an awesome home, pay for my kids’ school, and have food on the table every day. We have enough to go out and celebrate when the time comes. I am even thankful for my old cars that made it another year and cost me almost nothing to have them. (To all of you with fancy cars and fancy car payments: how do you like me now? I paid $0 in car payments this year.)

I am so thankful for my patients and the community I live in. And my church. I am thankful for my friends who seem to stand by me, in spite of me.

I am thankful for this blog and what it means to me and dentistry. I am thankful for the AGD and the platform we have in this and the people behind the scenes that make it all happen. I am thankful for Dr. Jackson and Dr. Joyce coming onboard. I am thankful for all of you readers (just found out this week that we had 1350 people read the blog last week in addition to the 165 subscribers). I think we are getting somewhere. The blog IS bringing people together. The blog IS making people feel less alone (even if they write in contradiction to me).

We go through the year and sometimes it gets tough, but we can't forget how good we have it. I know you could be swimming in debt. I know the practice continues to decline. I feel it, too. But we are dentists and it really is a good gig. I mean, we could be in construction (almost no building in central Florida). I know it is a grind some days, but we just can't forget to count our blessings. Use tomorrow to do that. Eat, drink, watch football and be thankful. I know I am.

Thanks you guys,
john