Gratitude is a fantastic emotion, and when you allow yourself to feel it every day, it lifts you up in ways you never thought you could imagine. Being grateful for those things that you have and those things that you don't is essential not only because it helps you see what you do have but what you don't have as well. Gratitude brings you back to the here and now and allows you to be present while keeping your cherished memories close to your heart. Gratitude helps you heal your wounds, and gratitude helps you grow through your challenges. I remember thinking while lying in my hospital bed after having three brain surgeries to help the seizures that were unsuccessful, "well, how can I be grateful for anything? "I just had my head cut open and a piece of my brain removed, and now I learn that I will still have seizures. At that moment, I picked up a book by Randy Pausch called "The Last Lecture. "If anyone of you reading this don't know who Randy Pausch is, he was a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University who died in 2008 after a battle with stomach cancer. He gave his last lecture on gratitude and spoke about not his illness and how it has made his life miserable but how it has made him look back and be more grateful for his life and the life he lived.
As I lay in my hospital bed and turned through the pages, I remember thinking and feeling differently about my current circumstance. I have been living with Epilepsy my entire life, and I felt ungrateful for my brain and all it provides. I never allowed myself grace whenever I had a seizure, and said, "This is my life, be thankful you even have one. "It was in those moments that I picked up a pen and wrote myself a promise to be grateful. As I wrote this promise and read these words, I began to see all I had to be grateful for and all that life has provided me throughout my life to be thankful for in every moment. From this day forward, I lived every day through the eyes of gratitude, and I look at each day as a gift.
When you start looking at each day as a gift instead of a curse and realizing that you get to do things instead of having to do something, life instantly starts to turn around. There is so much that we can choose to look at from the perspective of having to do, and when you do that, that something, whether it be a simple task such as brushing your teeth, taking a shower, going for a walk, driving to work, or working out, begins to look tedious, and mundane. And we begin to start taking them for granted. But if you look at each task as if you get to do them, the task itself begins to look different. You don't just have to brush your teeth, you get to brush your teeth, you don't have to take a shower, but you get to feel the water running over you, cleaning your body. You get to move from place to place with your feet and your legs, and you get to go from point A to point B in a vehicle that
allows you to save energy while on your way to work.
Make yourself a promise today to be intentional about all the things you get to do today. When you focus on the task, realize how much of a gift it is for you actually to be able to do it.
Keep on keeping on,
Danny
Are you ready to thrive through gratitude? Sign up for my free gratitude guide, and while you are at it, check out my thrive apparel.
Comments