One of the key issues that keeps us from enjoying life deeply is probably our lack of being grateful for our life. Gratitude brings with it a quality that makes us look at the whole of creation in wonder - the fragrance, the beauty, the squalor and the ugliness. You are just happy to be alive. That feeling brings in a lot of love into your heart that you share. You smile, you sing.
One of the reasons why we do not have gratitude in our hearts is that we take everything for granted. Only someone who does not have freedom, good health, the use of limbs, financial independence and anything else in life will understand what it means to have it. And when we take things for granted, when we are perpetually in a state of dissatisfaction, there is no room for gratitude. In fact we are starting at a point of ingratitude. We are saying 'so why did you give me only this' and 'I want more' and 'everyone has more' instead of being happy with what we have and improving on it. We think - 'when we have all those things we can be grateful, until then I have no reason to be grateful.' So like everything else, we postpone gratitude until the big day when we feel like we have enough.
But that is the paradox of the universe. Unless we are grateful for what we have it does not give more. Being grateful and wanting more are two separate things. So it might just help to start with gratitude and then embark on the journey for more. That way you can enjoy things far more. You enjoy things that you are grateful for far more than things you are not grateful for, right?
To bring an urgency to gratitude is one way of getting off to a right start. And to bring this urgency in get down to the numbers - say, I have 30 years to live on an estimate. That is about 12000 days of existence left to be happy, to achieve, to enjoy, to talk, to love, to create. And today is the first day of the balance number of days left in my life. Tomorrow its going to be 19, 999. Now that already makes me grateful for the day. I am already feeling like doing certain things I have been postponing.
Worth a try.
One of the reasons why we do not have gratitude in our hearts is that we take everything for granted. Only someone who does not have freedom, good health, the use of limbs, financial independence and anything else in life will understand what it means to have it. And when we take things for granted, when we are perpetually in a state of dissatisfaction, there is no room for gratitude. In fact we are starting at a point of ingratitude. We are saying 'so why did you give me only this' and 'I want more' and 'everyone has more' instead of being happy with what we have and improving on it. We think - 'when we have all those things we can be grateful, until then I have no reason to be grateful.' So like everything else, we postpone gratitude until the big day when we feel like we have enough.
But that is the paradox of the universe. Unless we are grateful for what we have it does not give more. Being grateful and wanting more are two separate things. So it might just help to start with gratitude and then embark on the journey for more. That way you can enjoy things far more. You enjoy things that you are grateful for far more than things you are not grateful for, right?
To bring an urgency to gratitude is one way of getting off to a right start. And to bring this urgency in get down to the numbers - say, I have 30 years to live on an estimate. That is about 12000 days of existence left to be happy, to achieve, to enjoy, to talk, to love, to create. And today is the first day of the balance number of days left in my life. Tomorrow its going to be 19, 999. Now that already makes me grateful for the day. I am already feeling like doing certain things I have been postponing.
Worth a try.
2 comments:
yeah, i agree. The things we have are far more useful than ones we don't, usually.
Like someone said - 'I only want you to give up things you don't have'.
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