When we’re sick, we dream about how great it is to be healthy. That’s also the first thing we forget as soon as we become healthy.
Why? We tend to spend more time chasing the have-nots than appreciating the haves. The things that are right in front of us become blurry. It happens more than you think.
Quick exercise: Count how many toes you have in your feet and move each toe as you count it.
Great, now you feel the presence of your toes, a sensation you didn’t have a few seconds ago.
How wonderful it is to have 10 toes… I’d hate to lose one to learn this lesson.
In my juvenile years, I was part of a basketball team. I recall that during a shower after a hard training session, I scanned my body parts and thanked each part for doing a great job today.
While commuting to my operation base, during my military service, I faced a daily decision, will I use the elevator or take the stairs?
I always took the stairs and while doing so, I thanked my legs for carrying me, reflecting on the ones that have to take the elevator and are not privileged to have my choice.
Today, I’m grateful for waking up next to my smiling wife and child, being able to start another day together.
Adapting to a sufficiency mindset is tricky because of our built-in fear of missing out, but if you take a long, hard look around, you will see that you have enough.
6 Responses
It is true that humans always want everything they don’t have and most likely start to appreciate things or people in their life after they loose them. In fact, this is the actual human nature. The most important thing is a person to learn how to bend in between so to learn to truly appreciate everything so to be prepared to embrace everything new in life with gratitude. Humanity should be based on the law of love because love itself contains patience, kindness, it is unselfish, it is giving and it does not expect in return, it is humble… The law of love is that it covers all the good spiritual traits. Love and be loved. ^_^
Beautifully said. Thank you Doroteya! 🙂
This is definitely a lesson we tend to forget and take for granted. Thank you for the daily reminder to be thankful and appreciate the things I am able to do. This last year especially, I have been finding myself to be very thankful for the opportunities I receive and the things I am able to be doing in the present and hope that the appreciation will carry it on forward for the future. Inspirational, great post. Always a thoughtful person, Eliran. Much love
Thanks for your kind words, David!
Inspirational and heartwarming, thank you for this drop of light 🙂 ..a little further down the road, for me, it boils down to the question why negatives touch as deeper as positives, or why the hurts imprint themselves stronger then the joys? As a (human) being of time, the only real shift happens when i am able to spiritually move the perspective / viewpoint into that unjustly disregarded property of “the now”…there a strange bliss awakens, seeing and hearing the loved ones, ourselves, and all the wonderful creation of life around us, shining through as they share in on our time..That for me is having everything 🙂
Beautifully said, Kristina!
To answer your question: I believe that pain is usually real and very hard to fake, while joy is more complicated and nuanced… therefore, it’s easier to tune into pain/hurt.