Your Blessings

 Today you live in peace. Think about war times when lives were lost so easily, and when pain, suffering, and poverty were everywhere.  Now you have your loved ones near you. Many had lost them in war, in natural calamities and in accidents. Today you live in an age of medical breakthroughs and  communication revolution. You can talk to your dear ones abroad over the Skype instantly. In the past, remember, letters took months to arrive, if at all they did. Now you send an email and it gets delivered in seconds. Even kings in the past didn't have a fraction of the entertainment options you have  today like the television, movie, electronic games, travels, adventure tourism, just to name a few. Now you can know anything happening  anywhere instantly through the net. Years before, you had to search for a book and a few centuries before, knowledge was transmitted orally; writing had not been invented yet.  

You are blessed with friends, relatives, lover, partner, father, mother, grandparents, teachers, pets, house, garden, TV, computers, automobiles, aircrafts,  ships, trains, fridge, job, health, food, entertainments, moon, stars, rainbow, sunset, sunrise, rain, snow, nature, animals,  music, dance, night clubs, strangers and lots of love. There is really a lot to be thankful for. We are not aware of these and we take them for granted. Sometimes we need to experience a loss to appreciate the value of what we have.   Become grateful for this moment, this day.  A thankful heart is very important to our happiness. Enjoy the beauty, richness, love and opportunities that exist in life. Appreciate those who help us or give nice things to us.

Let us reframe painful or disappointing events as opportunities for doing something good.  Let people who love you know that you are grateful to them. Be thankful for what you have as you never know when it will be gone.  As an anonymous poet has sung:   If your arteries have hardened and arthritis have slowed your gait, or if your dancing days are over, or if any other condition afflicts you, think of others with more pain like the fellow in the wheel chair or the one without hands or legs, and be grateful for the use of the right arm that can write a letter, for the eyes that can savor every flower, bird and tree, for the ears that can tune in the sounds they make and above all your brain, the greatest asset. There are many who are mad, retarded or imbeciles who cannot use this wonderful faculty.   

You cannot welcome more abundance into your life until you have said to the universe truly, "Hey, thanks for all I have”. Place yourself in a better mood by being thankful. You will find you are in a much more optimistic state after you've spent a few minutes reflecting about your blessings and feeling grateful for them. Compassion and kindness will probably fill your heart.

Helen Keller was blind, deaf and mute; still she thought she was blessed and tried to cheer those who were blind. Mark Ingles, whose legs were amputated below the knee in 1982 as they were frost-bitten while stuck in a snow cave for 13 days during mountaineering, feels there is a lot left to be thankful about. He is grateful he is  alive and he conquered Mount Cook in 2002 and Mount  Everest in 2006.  And these days he is travelling around inspiring others to enjoy and appreciate this life.  If a person without both eyes, ears, vocal chords or both legs has so much to be happy about we sure can be happier and say a bigger thank you to this dear life and the universe which gave birth to us.  

Say a big Thank you

Are we counting more on our blessings or shortcomings?                                                                                                          A lot of us are always in a complaint mode. We don’t have this, we don’t have that.  We did not get a university education, we did not inherit wealth, we did not inherit a great talent. well, we have a lot to complain about.

Let us assume whatever you complain is true. Still, what is the use of complaining?  Nothing is going to change. There are some who are born rich, famous or talented; there are others who are beautiful or athletic. But there are those who are born poor, blind, deaf, crippled, retarded or mad. No one can stop this. That is the way the game of life is played down here. Inequality is a law of life.

Those who are born rich and famous did not ask for them. They simply got birth in rich or famous families. It is not their fault that they are lucky.   You are in no way unlucky. There must be enough blessings around and inside, you are not aware of. If you stop and look around, you will be amazed at the good things you have. Be grateful for what you have and not regret what you do not have.  There is no point in doing so. Nobody is interested in your wants and deprivations, in your pains and failures.

In my late teens I had the dirty habit of talking about my family’s poverty and wants to anyone I met. I hoped to evoke a bit of sympathy and through it manage to get some financial assistance. Before long I knew they hated and tried to avoid me because of what I told them.  The world is not interested in your problems. People want to associate with those who are promising, who have something good to talk about.

However poor or unlucky you are, you will be better off than many others. You will realize it If you compare yourself to the less fortunate. You the reader are blessed in so many special ways. You are probably an educated and normal individual (who can walk, read, think, talk, hear, sense) who is healthy with a family and a steady income. There will be a few more things you would love to possess. But as Vernon Luchies said, “If we get everything we want we will soon want nothing we get.”  Savor what we already have: our health, our senses, our education, our money, our family, children, friends.  If we don’t enjoy what we already have how could we be happier with more? Maxim Gorky  once remarked: “Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but you let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.”

  You have been sufficiently blessed but still you lack a grateful heart. Ungrateful people cannot develop happiness easily. To be happy a person one should be grateful for what he has, forget his unpleasant past and stop worrying about future.  Take some time off to reflect on all that you have. This world of yours is amazing and you must be happy you are alive now. Those who are grateful for what they already have usually get much more. Or the more you complain the less you get. Don’t fall into the rut of complaining and ruining your life. Complainers attract other complainers who are unwanted anywhere and together they make life a hell.

We need to be especially grateful for having obtained our life in this advanced times (suppose you were born 10,000 years ago! You would not have probably outlived your childhood.  You would have been always on the run for food. Wild animals scared you so much and you were running to protect yourself. There was no cure for the inherited or acquired illnesses. Disease germs and viruses haunted you to death.  You had to use your legs for transporting yourself. You would not have enjoyed the comfort of a home or cooked food. Average life span was less than 15 and you were a primitive hunter- gatherer. Natural disasters and epidemics used to destroy entire herds of you.

Today we have everything. Life has become so very easy and comfortable. Diseases are under control and every source of happiness is open to us. We enjoy the freedom to advance in life by amassing wealth, knowledge or anything we dream of. There is a lot to be grateful about which we take for granted and forget to be appreciative of. Overcome this by dedicating sometime to be thankful to the universe maintaining an attitude of gratitude.