On Thanksgiving we tend to take a pause and remember everything we are grateful for in our lives. It is an annual tradition in America. What I wonder is why don’t we carry this attitude into the rest of our lives and days. Why just one time a year do we ask what we are grateful for and then the next completely forget and go back to complaining how imperfect our miserable lives are?
For several years I have been working very hard to carry that gratitude with me every day, and it is difficult. All around me people are complaining and grumpy about things. I try to be grateful for the opportunity to practice unconditional gratitude, and I do struggle like all humans do. We live in a world where nothing ever seems like it is good enough for us. We cannot be grateful for what we have because we focus on what we don’t have.
I know it is not New Year’s Eve, and still, I have a resolution. In the face of whatever is in my face, I will be grateful. I have not always wanted to live a long life, and I am grateful now that I actually do. I am grateful for the people in my life that I get to share it with. I am grateful for all of the things I have, and all of the things I do not have. I am satisfied with exactly how things are. I hope to find peace and hope in that place of satisfaction. When I stop wishing for things to be something they are not, I hope to find gratitude for what is and peace knowing it is exactly how it should be.
For all of you, I wish you the same peace and gratitude in life, to know that it is all well just as it is, and that if you don’t like it that way, well, just wait a moment. It will change. Life is like that. It keeps moving and changing whether we want it to or not, might as well roll with it and love it as it is, right? While I realize this is easy for me to say, since I have a great life, I also know that this life did not happen by accident, and I have not always had a great life. Be grateful for the path that leads you to yourself. It is through tough times and pain that we are brought to a place of knowing. We cannot wake up to what is there if we are constantly looking for what is not there. Life has a gift for you this season. Will you accept it? Will you be grateful for it? I hope that I am able to do both.
I am grateful for you all.
-Namaste