Gratitude

Having your own space, having people who care about you, being able to pay the bills, being able to cook your favourite meals, and everything you can only be grateful for. So why can't I appreciate all these things accordingly?

Let me emphasise up front that I am indeed grateful for my health, for my family, and for everything I own. Yet every now and then I catch myself wishing I could appreciate these things more appropriately. I don't want to remind myself to be grateful, I want to be in a constant state of bliss knowing that I'm crazy fortunate.

There is a lot of suffering in the world, unimaginable suffering. The things we take for granted are considered luxuries for others. Now, I have no intention of shaming anyone, just because we might have an easier, more privileged life than others doesn't imply that we can't have bad feelings, after all every human life contains varying degrees of suffering. But also, a degree of things to be grateful for.

Thus, all of us could benefit from seeing things from a different point of view by practising more gratitude, which can have an immense impact on our lives.

Here's what I've learned

Once gratitude becomes a constant companion, hardships will be regarded with a different mindset, after all, we cannot truly know love without first experiencing loneliness, faith without doubt, beauty without ugliness. It is only from the perspective of gratitude that we come to understand that these pains must be preserved within the pleasures for the latter to remain worthwhile.

Ultimately, it is all about what you make of the world. Having an inner trust that you have everything you need in life, and that you can appreciate how far you have come, you begin to sustain yourself differently, approaching every situation in life from a place of gratitude, which makes it far easier to ease feelings that are weighing you down.