“Thank you for my dinner. Thank you for my life.”
There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t express gratitude. Even when I am not happy or satisfied, I express gratitude.
For me, gratitude, even for things that I find challenging or difficult. I am grateful for the surprises that bring me teachable moments, times when my old assumptions are broken and I see the world in a new way.
Thank you for the divine surprises in my life. Thank you for the miracles that help me see the world in a new, more expansive, more inclusive, more compassionate and more connected way. Thank you for kicking me in the ass and making me more present, more aware and more aligned. Thank you.
While I am not optimistic, at least for myself, my attitude of gratitude kept me functional, able to find some solace and blessing in small things that delighted, assured, informed or enlightened. I know how easy it would be to slip into bleakness, writing off good things as too little and too late, but that is a dead end. Gratitude is what makes life bearable.
I am also grateful for the good things that happen to others. If you want good things in your life you need to be able to bless them in others lives. Being bitter at their good fortune, angry that they got something you wanted, does not make either their life or your life better. It only poisons possibility.
I am not thrilled or happy with my life. I am not hopeful about my life changing for the better.
I am, however, grateful for my life, grateful for all the little things that are part of it. Fresh August tomatoes, the magic of having a song I imagined pop up on a playlist (Don’t Get Around Much Anymore), a bit of sunlight, and much more are all something to be grateful for.
It is this gratitude which keeps me going, the only thing I know that can claim one more good day in the face of loss, pain and decay.
Thank you for my food, for my insight, for my life.
If the only prayer you ever say is “thank you,” that will be enough.
— Meister Eckhart
Thank you. Thank you.
Callan 