Gratitude
This morning when I went for my swim down the local beach, one of our regulars, Larry, was missing.
On asking around I was told he was interstate as his 14 month grandchild had died on Saturday. This came the day after Larry was informed by his doctor he has cancer.
Here I was ready to tell anyone who would listen about my sore back and how tired I felt with a touch of the flu. How petty. How self absorbed.
I live within walking distance of the beach in an location that people from all over the world spend thousands of dollars to holiday in. There is no pollution, little crime and our noisy neighbors are a range of beautiful indigenous birds. My health is great (for my age) and nothing has fallen off yet.
Again I had to remind myself to step back and give thanks for all that I have.
It may sound corner or trite but each day I need to stop and reflect and be grateful.
Having a sense of gratitude radiates and can influences others. Your attitude, words and actions will be a demonstration of how you appreciate everything in your Life.
Now I am not saying that all is bliss and you should run skip around the neighborhood distributing roses but just have a sense that 99% of the world's population is worse off that you or I.
Hey for me to be writing this blog and you reading it demonstrates this point.
Take time out and start your list;
I am grateful you have taken the time to read this.
Mick
Recent Comments
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"gratitude for everything and anything" is the primary spiritual practice for the 21st century. if one continually says out loud,:thank you very much to everything around you for 10 minutes you will be surprised at the joy that will well up from your heart.of course for gratitude to be a correct spiritual practice it must be joined with action to demonstrate our gratitude.the flip side and essential side to gratitude is apology. this is a practice that one does instead of the negative, guilt! apology must also be demonstrated to be real! apology and true gratitude are something that one does. ie to demonstrate my apology i do things like clean the toilet at my dojo with the attitude of " please may i be of benefit to others so i can show my apology" or one might do altruistic practices like help at your local church. same for gratitude!
I have a little gadget on my computer. It's an automatic popup when my computer starts up. Guess what the popup is. Yes - gratitude. Every day I complete my gratitude list inside that little box. Whether it is for the rain, my ears to hear the birds, or water to wash with, I am grateful daily. It does our souls good to get things into perspective. Thank you for the blog :)
Great post. I am grateful for all my many blessings and for finding WA.