Thanksgiving Is A Good Day To Be Grateful To Be Alive.

"I did a bad thing and have to confess," read the text. "I snuck one cookie. I just had to have one."

"It's all right," I wrote back. "I made a double batch."

"So how is it possible that they're better and better every time you make them?"

It would take too long to answer that question in a text so I joked about not giving up any secrets. In reality, there are no secrets. My recipe has remained unchanged. It's everything else that is different.

I might mix up my Thanksgiving dessert list a little every year, but chocolate chip cookies have become a first string favorite. The same goes for other holidays and gatherings too. People like them.

As a first string favorite, I make them often enough that I've stopped tinkering with the recipe and started tinkering with everything around the recipe — the consistency of the batter before adding flour, the right size of the cookie ball before it is baked, the best temperature of my particular oven and the right rack to put the pan on, and a dozen other details that would bore most people. All of it matters if you want to make a great cookie. And the only way to do it is to practice making it perfect.

This isn't all that different from what I tell my daughter's softball team as one of the coaches. Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. So every time they step up to the plate or set their feet to throw a ball, they strive for perfection  — at warmups, practices, and ball games.

You can't expect to throw someone out at first or pick up a base hit if you slack in practice or goof around during warmups. In fact, it's improper practices that create bad habits and cause poor game performances. And this is so true, it seems, that no practice is better than a bad practice for many players.

The same thing goes for baking cookies too. If you're not willing to strive for a perfect practice, then there isn't any reason to expect better cookies. It's those simple things that make all the difference.

We tend to overlook simple things. But it's the simple things that make for perfect practice. 

In softball, the difference between a hard hit and soft hit can be attributed to something as simple as turning the back foot. With chocolate chip cookies, the difference between good cookies and great ones can be something as subtle as how cold the dough is before you put it in the oven. As a writer, the difference between informing or inspiring is often tied to sentence structure or even word choice.

It applies to anything and everything else too. You can't expect an organized pantry if you fill spaces as opposed to putting things away in their proper places. You can't expect to feel great more days than not if you aren't willing to make physical fitness one of your priorities in life. And you can never truly appreciate anything in life until you learn to be grateful for being alive.

At least that was my takeaway when my family and I celebrated my birthday last week. A friend of mine asked what my big plans might be for my birthday and I told him that I was cleaning out a closet and then cooking dinner — filets, bacon wrapped shrimp, double stuffed potatoes, and peas. He laughed and said that all sounded like a lot of work. Maybe everyone ought to do that for me, he said.

I laughed and joked that I would have to waste a wish when I blew out my candles to make that happen. But no, I don't think so. Birthdays aren't be about being spoiled. That's just icing on the cake.

Sure, five years ago or so I used to think that birthdays were about people spoiling me. Nowadays, I think about birthdays as a day to be grateful to even have a life. And for me, I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate having a life than by making a non-functional closet functional again and cooking an indulgent dinner to share with my family. I consider it a perfect practice for a better life.

Sure, there was a cake to enjoy after dinner. Yes, there were some gifts I really appreciated. But the real lesson learned can boiled down into appreciating that everything about a birthday is pretty amazing if you're grateful to even have one. The rest of it is a bonus, kind of like homemade cookies.

So if you really want to know why my cookies are better every time I make them, the reason is pretty simple. I've stopped chasing outcomes and started working toward perfecting practices. And that, more than anything else, has made me more grateful than ever — for my friends, for my family, for the few people who read this post, and for my very life.

Thank you for that and happy Thanksgiving. Good night and good luck.