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.