The Inevitability of Life

Each step towards our objective require patience, struggles, and battle; the vigorous efforts and enthusiasm of dedicated people. But if there is no battle, there is no advancement. Your personal, professional, and productive life are altogether entwined.

Individual battles, mistakes, and perseverance are a piece of each individual story. An appropriate mindset can transform disappointment into a blessing. In fact, adaptive skills and intelligence can be developed to help an individual conquer a resounding disappointment.

Our ability to rise back in every circumstance that we encountered in life enable us to become stronger and better individuals. Our resilience allows each one of us to rise back every time we fall.

We cannot avoid the inevitability of life. We will never know how unavoidable the unavoidable was. Because an apple falls one hundred times out of a hundred doesn't mean it will fall on the hundred and first.

This world is our reality however that doesn't mean we can generally prevent it from burning. We could have continued driving and never thought back. Nobody's at any point needed to stop for us. Or on the other hand even hear me. Anyway, we did, and now we're apprehensive the ideal opportunity for decision is behind us both.

Enduring is inescapable. It is a piece of the human condition. It is written in the human content. We meet numerous individuals for the duration of our lives. Huge numbers of them we don't generally make an association with. What's more, regardless of whether we do whatever it takes not to demonstrate to them that, it's inescapable to have contentions, make's someone extremely upset, lose a companion, or the consequences will be severe. In the event that we don't do it, another person will do it to us. That is exactly how connections work.

Regardless of whether we're the kindest individual on the planet, there will be somebody who'll differ with the manner in which we live, and will need to tell us what his feeling is. In case we're the one causing the contention, make a stride back and think about on our conduct. Yet, at that point acknowledge the way we meet such individuals on our way as well. It's simply the value we pay for gathering the incredible people who really remain in our life.

Being frail from time to time is in our inclination. We need that so as to realize what quality is, and it's an opportunity we're given to defeat that shortcoming. Yet, don't feel terrible about that. Try not to make a safe place that will make you feel good. As inevitably, that turns into your shortcoming as well.

It's nothing shocking to be dependent on something - we as a whole are, regardless of whether we understand it or not. It's not the most exceedingly terrible thing to have some negative behavior patterns, they're a piece of life as well.

Getting old might be very discouraging. We possibly feel old once we compare ourselves with other people especially the younger ones. Be that as it may, what's the point? Feeling awful about our age implies we have laments about the past or haven't made harmony with it.So now's the correct time to consider what was, to acknowledge it with our entire being, and to simply leave it alone.

Seeing ourselves come up short. This is another of the unavoidable things that will occur eventually in our life. Presumably more regularly than we'd like. However, disappointment is the greatest teacher throughout our life. In the event that we figure out how to embrace it, we'll have aced a significant part of life. In the wake of accomplishing something incorrectly, we can proceed onward more grounded and know precisely what not to do next time. Isn't that incredible?

In fact,there are many things around us that we ought to be profoundly thankful for. Indeed, we ought to thank for having them every single minute. It's exactly how we live. We're frequently in a surge and neglect to stop and take in the pleasant ambiance.

In any case, we end up with second thoughts and having lost something valuable without acknowledging how astonishing it was. So make some space in your days for gratefulness and appreciation. Make it a day by day practice and you'll wind up being increasingly placated after some time.

What's more, who knows, possibly there's something significantly more superb than life itself after? So these are only the inescapable things in life we as a whole need to manage sooner or later.

Having weaknesses is our human nature. We need to know our weaknesses to recognize our strengths. But don't feel bad about that. Don't create a comfort zone that will make you feel better. Eventually, that will become your weakness too.

https://ezinearticles.com/?The-Inevitability-of-Life&id=10093710

3 Lessons to Improve Life (By Matt Collinson)

Lesson 1: Love What You Do.

I use the terminology that life is short. That is not meant to be depressing but to give a person the sense of urgent need. There is no other time than to have an overall feeling of love. I grew up in a very loving household and this is one root that has stuck throughout my entire life. We should want to love our lives. Go through the feeling of happiness every, solitary day.

We need to begin showing love toward those around us. By showing ounces of love communication opens up, helps people to come together and have that needed human need of companionship. Make no mistake, we seem to have grown together as a whole human race. This is great news because it is up to each of us to show love, patience and compassion for one another. One of my quests is to always ask how can we do this even better?

One step you could do to show some love is to do a quick video about things that you love in your life right now. Set it up on Facebook and tag #Dreams because this dream could be beautiful if you want to take action steps to have a more loving life.

Lesson 2: Gratefulness is Key.

One of the greatest things that I am grateful for in my life are my wife's parents. They took us in after I lost my jobs years ago and have put up with our family for years while I got on my feet again. By writing each article, publishing each book and the more I share the lessons of life with my kids and you, the reader, I am showing my thankfulness. My inspiration had to come out of desperation.

Being grateful for those that love you is something that should be shared. Tell people that you are grateful even in your own ways. This could be doing a phone call, writing a hand-written letter or just dropping by to talk. If you want to see how gratefulness works in life pick up the phone or talk to a person. Tell them you are grateful with all your heart. It will have an amazing impact on your life when you take the steps that will improve your life.

Lesson 3: Always Strive Forward

Inspiration comes at us at various times of our lives. Those inspirations can stem from two places. Pain or pleasure. Which would you like my friend? We all say that we would love pleasure. Yet, it takes a great amount of pain in order for a person to act. We could choose to say that we will from now on act out of pleasure. Pleasure will get you far but pain still needs to occur to help us grow.

Once we were children. As children we learned that when we skinned our knees it hurt but wasn't the end of the world. I encourage people to go skin their knees. Try as many things as your heart desires. You will find that passion that you want in your life. Even lately my parents are inspirations. They are amazing human beings. Lately they have been doing a lot of different things like traveling to Scotland and running all kinds of races. Teachings come in many different ways and real life examples are among the best.

Never give up on those dreams of yours. You deserve to get them and you must persist. Do not just persist for yourself, although it does come down to you. Persist for the love of life or message you want to share. Persist with the gratefulness of the challenge. Be as strong as you want to be. Remember that strength comes in many forms. Use the one you love most.

http://ezinearticles.com/?3-Lessons-to-Improve-Life&id=9547300

What Will You Do With Your Beautiful Life? (By Serrieh Hijazi)

You know when something is right. I mean it just feels right. That feeling that glides through your day and falls into place in the perfect fit that only destiny could create. This leads me to believe that I am right where I am supposed to be. Now don't get me wrong, I get anxiety all the time thinking about being so far from my family and loved ones, in a country (an awesome one, might I add) but nevertheless a country in which I do not speak the language at all. I knew about 5 Spanish words excluding curse words, (growing up in Southern Cali you at least knew those) when I arrived in Costa Rica. It wasn't easy convincing my worried husband, who without him we could not be venturing into this new way of life. He would follow and I would be on my own until then. After some serious discussion and knowing financially and physically this would be the only way to complete a move of this magnitude, my husband hugged me as I got in the car with my daughter who dropped me off at Amtrak to start my journey to Costa Rica.

See, we did not have the resources or the savings to just pick up and go, live off of our savings for a few months until we got settled. We have debt, school loans, medical bills, a car note, and a few low balance credit card payments. Up until a year ago we lived credit card free, which meant if we did not have it we did not spend it. It is a great but hard way to live in the states since it is a credit based society. So in order to build our credit, we use them but try and use them wisely.

I thought about all of this as I boarded the train. I thought about our kids (yes grown but were still my babies), my mom and sisters, and how would I be able to be so far away from my husband who by the way is my best friend. Away from all those I love in a country I knew nothing about. I have a lot of "what the freak moments", but I have to remember this is a chance of a lifetime. My husband and I have wanted for a long time to live a more simple life. Yet I am learning more simple is not always easier. As an American and I only speak from my perspective, we live with way too much. Period. We don't need half the stuff we claim we do in order to have a good quality of life.

I thought I lived simple, but I am being broken down and it's like a baby being born into a new world. I am that baby. I have been stripped from all my luxuries I once thought were mandatory and it stings. Some of it brings a smile to my face and sometimes it makes me cry or frustrates me, but the lesson in it all, is I can figure it out. I never thought I could really do it by myself. Now I say by myself in the tense of surviving in a city without the help from anyone on a day to day basis, but the reality is my husband has provided me a once in a lifetime opportunity that many women or men will never get. My husband believes in me more than I do at times, something I would never want to admit to. We believed in each other and without him I would have never thought of traveling out of the country and wouldn't even think it would be possible. We are both so involved in this move spiritually and physically that it is draining and breathtaking all at the same time.

I am moving through life wishing I would have been this connected to the journey a long time ago. I wish I would have had the same respect for life that I do now. But would of, should of and could of does not fix anything. Learning my lessons and still smiling through the pain with gratefulness is the key. It is the key to happiness. Happiness doesn't always mean you will actually feel happy at that very moment. Nothing lasts forever but it comes in waves. In order to feel joy you must feel pain, or you wouldn't know the difference.

I know everyone is on the quest to find the true meaning of life, but the true meaning might be different to different people. That is the true meaning. At least in my eyes.

http://ezinearticles.com/?What-Will-You-Do-With-Your-Beautiful-Life?&id=9327347

The 6 Habits That Lead To Happiness

So often we count what is missing from our lives, focusing on what is not there.

In doing this, we create a form of "negative hallucination," a state of mind that blinds us to so much of what is actually there -- a really self-defeating way to pass our days.

By dwelling on what we lack we create feelings of deprivation and unhappiness that can eclipse the spirit and block our ability to experience the simple joy of being alive.

If we really do want to live a more fulfilled and joyful life then cultivating a sense of gratitude is a key ingredient. Gratitude for all that we have, for all that is there, brings with it a deeper appreciation of life itself.

Research has shown (1) that gratitude is an essential element in our ability to experience genuine happiness.

Change Your Mind

Not only that, but expressing gratitude can help change your mind in a positive way, and actually have a physical effect on the brain, changing it in positive ways.

Gratefulness and life satisfaction just seem to go hand in hand (2).

Here are six habits that grateful people cultivate. They are the keys to increased joy and contentment.

1. Grateful people do not expect life to give them every single thing they desire. They live with the understanding that no one can have everything they want, when they want it, and that this is okay. They are appreciative of all they have, and are less likely to envy what others have.

2. Grateful people take nothing for granted. They do their best to see the positive outcome in situations and experiences and are not afraid to work towards those outcomes. They do not take the good things in their lives for granted.

3. Grateful people work with things as they are. They do not insist that conditions be exactly right before they can be happy. Appreciative of all they have, they accept life's shortcomings, while working on their own, and welcome joy and happiness into their lives unconditionally.

4. Grateful people realize that they cannot have the sunshine without also having the rain. They understand that no one can live in a perpetual state of happiness, accepting that difficult times will sometimes come. They have learned to respect and be grateful for life in all its diversity.

5. Grateful people cultivate flexible thinking habits. They have learned to adapt to life circumstances and can adjust their thinking to the situation. Gratitude and rigid thinking make a poor fit, and so they make allowances for other people's perceptions and opinions.

6. Grateful people do not define themselves by their regrets. They appreciate their abilities while working to improve them, accepting responsibility for their actions while working towards their positive future. Cultivate these habits of gratitude and you really will reap some wonderful benefits.

What are you waiting for? Why not start right now!

http://ezinearticles.com/?The-6-Habits-That-Lead-To-Happiness&id=9382232

Do You Appreciate The Little Things Everyday?

For the past year, I kept a gratitude journal and whenever life takes a hit on a bump in the roads I've paved, I look back and re-read some of the entries I have made inside and it feels like someone else secretly wrote my experience down in my place.

That's because it is so easy to forget small moments of gratitude more than anything else.

Funny thing is, why are we able to bear grudges and hold certain amounts of resentment for someone or circumstances over really long periods of time and allow it recur in our minds over and over so easily?

Your brain overrides every single good thing in your life in that instant, like a malfunctioning CPU system that took a hit on a virus and starts a raging war within. It becomes a battle you feel the need to fight and resist every day.

And if you actually keep a diary and have your worst nightmares documented in gruesome details, it'll probably continue to stay in your life and stick around in your experience with you starring as the main lead in the horror movie of your life.

(Well, at least up to the point & moment you burn those journals.)

Gratitude, on the other hand is such a gradual and subtle process in the beginning that it is so easy to overlook and miss, it's almost as if you turn away for a split second and that opportunity slips right through your fingers.

The thing about gratitude is, you need to first of all learn appreciation.

Without the "ability" to appreciate, you wouldn't even begin to know where to start to find the feeling of gratefulness. You start with the things you already have and then begin to appreciate the unfolding of the things you don't have but know is coming and on its way.

Being able to direct your thoughts is the wonderful start of having control of your life, to have the freedom to think your thoughts with deliberate intent and choose what you would like to be feeling in that moment and not have to constantly look to someone else's behavior and action to feel good.

Taking the time to practice feeling appreciation is merely a tool to help sculpt yourself a better stronger mind. There may not be huge explosive great things happening every single day to be jumping and punching the air for joy, but there are always things around you to appreciate in this instant right here and now.

That is the beauty of this practice.

Sometimes it takes something big to happen before it grabs your focus and attention making you learn to appreciate things the hard way, but it really doesn't have to be this way.

You can start anytime and any day.

A healthy person wouldn't start appreciating their ability to breathe with ease until they lose it one day or they wouldn't appreciate the ability to feel hungry to taste & savor food until their appetite was taken away from a dis-ease or illness.

We take for granted the smallest things around us every day.

If we take the time and a little effort to find 1 more thing to add to our list and let it grow, soon enough, it becomes second nature to you.

Soon enough, you will truly take possession and ownership of a new found appreciation for yourself, for the people around you, for all the things that were invented to make you go through your daily activities with ease and comfort.

You will appreciate your ability to listen to soothing music and wonderful conversations, your ability to feel the warm running water soaking through your skin and hug your favorite Egyptian cotton pillow, the ability to see every sunrise in the morning & catch the sun setting in the evenings when you are out on your walks, the ability to smell food coming out from the kitchen and your fridge to be surprised and delighted, the ability to taste what's sitting on your plate to nourish your body and mind that day.

Here are some simple (but not easy at first) methods/ways to start practicing for your well-being:

1) Keep a Gratitude Journal

Start with just 3 things a day and gradually increase it to 5, then 10 and so on so forth.

But 3 is a good start.

2) Express your gratitude

Take the time to really recount on the specific positive feeling of the things you felt grateful for etc, were you excited? Hopeful? Delighted? Inspired?

Learn to increase your A-Z vocabulary of positive feelings and words and you'll soon find that your conversations, sentences you construct and attitude makes a shift etc, A for Appreciation.. B for Beautiful.. C for Carefree.. D for Delight...

3) Self-direct your thoughts & be the architect of your own mind

When something "bad" happens, always be quick to nit-pick for positive aspects. Say, someone was unkind to you that day, you would soothe yourself to find reasons to love them anyway. etc, maybe the person had a bad day, be thankful you are having a much better one and slowly you redirect your focus back to yourself and not let other people's issues or problems be the reason for your bad day.

4) Practice it everyday

Find every possible chance to practice the feeling of it. Whether it's the water you drink that quenched your thirst, the food you bless before your meals, the efficient people you work around with, the kind people you meet on the streets, use it as a tool and shine a spotlight on it.

Put a magnifying glass over every small detail and soon enough, you acclimate to the high feeling energy place and the state of mind of pure appreciation.

When your body & mind dominates the constant feeling of gratitude, nothing else that contradicts it will ever come near your experience.

Basically, we are like walking giant magnets of energy.

What we put out there for the world to receive, we get hit back (hard) with the same one. What goes around comes around, remember? What it is really referring to is not karma. Even though it might feel like it is there and then, if it was a negative bounce.

It has always been about your personal energy you carry with you 24/7. That "vibe" people give off? That's energy. You can't see it, but you can absolutely feel it.

So would you be more careful with what you hold in your thoughts if you knew this law? As sure as the law of gravity, this attraction exists and it is happening all the time even if you can't see it with your naked eye. So make small effort to shift that energy if you want only to engage with the best. And let the respective islands group itself accordingly to energy.

Be a force to be reckoned with & spread only the things you would want to have on your plate and in your life.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Do-You-Appreciate-The-Little-Things-Everyday?&id=9414138

Grateful Living Practice

          The naturalness and simplicity of this practice 
                           are great advantages.

    

Gratefulness is a practice.  It is so simple and so common – so universal, really – to be grateful that we think, “That can’t be a practice like Zen or Yoga.”  But when you look carefully and when you make it your practice, it can be really on the same level as these great traditional practices.  And in a sense, it is a traditional practice.  If you just think of your mother, of your grandmother – maybe you even knew your great-grandmother, as I was lucky to know two of them – they were grateful people, and they taught you gratefulness.  So it comes to you in a less formal setting, but it really is a traditional practice that comes to you. 

The naturalness and simplicity of this practice are great advantages.  If you think of all the pain that you have to go through when you pretzel yourself in hatha yoga, being grateful is a lot easier!   Every other practice takes so long, and gratefulness doesn’t take very long at all.  If you make up your mind – “Okay, from now on it will be my practice” – and you start right now, this very moment,you will be a lot more joyful.  You can check it and find that it does something for you quite immediately.

You will find that what is essential for gratefulness remains the same in Zen, Yoga, any Christian practice, or any other practice.  The essence of being grateful is accepting what is.  Obviously we are not just talking about saying “Thank you” – we are talking about that inner gesture, that inner attitude from which saying “thank you” springs when it is genuine. 

That, of course, implies being in the now.   “What is, is always now,” as T.S. Eliot says so beautifully in The Four Quartets.  “The all is always now.”  That seems obvious, but it is very important to remind ourselves that All Is Always Now.  If it isn’t now, it isnot.  It was or will be, but it is not.  Whatever is, is now.  So accepting what is means being in the now, and being in the now means dissolving the illusion of our little ego.  And that’s the goal of all practices!  When you’re in the now, this little “me” dissolves, because it feeds on past and future. 

The little “me”, if you look at it, is made up of your past:  of all the things that you have done or that you pride yourself in, or all these groups that you belong to.  If somebody asks “Who are you?”  you will describe yourself as being Austrian or American or Hungarian:   That’s something in the past, where you come from.  Or that you will say that you have such-and-such a name and that means you belong to such-and-such a family.  Or you will mention all the things that you have suffered!  That little “me” has suffered so much and prides itself on always having suffered more than anybody else.  If you can’t be better than anybody else, you can at least be much worse than everybody else!  That’s also something of the past.

Sometimes it is difficult to track this little “me” down.  It’s quite evasive, because we identify with it.  One way of tracking it down is catching it when it complains.  It has a habit of complaining.

So that is how the ego shows itself in reference to the past.  And then there is the future:  the things that you expect and pin your hopes on, things that you will still accomplish.  “I will still accomplish enlightenment!”  That’s something for the future.  Well, that’s not the way it works.  If it isn’t now, don’t expect it coming later.  But this now is just what this little self is so afraid of, because if you are in the now, it vanishes.  The ego has no foothold in the now. 

So those are the three essential aspects of being grateful.  The first one is obvious:  accepting what is now.  Accepting what is.  The second:  Any given thing must be in the now, because if it is, it is in the now.   The third:  If you are grateful in the now – and where else can you be grateful? – your little self dissolves.  And that’s the goal of all practices.  So if you start being grateful, that’s what you’re in for. 

http://www.gratefulness.org/readings/dsr_grateful_practice.htm

Awake, Aware, and Alert

Three Steps In the Process of Living a Life of Gratefulness

         

"There are times, I must admit, when stopping at night to review my day seems to be the first stop on an express train. Then I look back and realize with regret how much I missed."

An act of gratitude is a living whole. To superimpose on its organic flow a mental grid like a series of "steps" will always be somewhat arbitrary. And yet, for the sake of practice, such a delineation can be helpful.

In any process, we can distinguish a beginning, a middle, and an end. We may use this basic three-step grid for the practice of gratitude: What happens at the start, in the middle, and at the end, when we experience gratitude? What fails to happen when we are not grateful?

Before going to bed, I glance back over the day and ask myself: Did I stop and allow myself to be surprised? Or, did I trudge on in a daze?

To be awake, aware, and alert are the beginning, middle, and end of gratitude. This gives us the clue to what the three basic steps of practising gratitude must be.

Step One: Wake Up

To begin with, we never start to be grateful unless we wake up. Wake up to what? To surprise. As long as nothing surprises us, we walk through life in a daze. We need to practice waking up to surprise. I suggest using this simple question as a kind of alarm clock: "Isn't this surprising?" "Yes, indeed!" will be the correct answer, no matter when and where and under what circumstances you ask this question. After all, isn't it surprising that there is anything at all, rather than nothing? Ask yourself at least twice a day, "Isn't this surprising?" and you will soon be more awake to the surprising world in which we live.

Surprise may provide a jolt, enough to wake us up and to stop taking everything for granted. But we may not at all like that surprise. "How can I be grateful for something like this?" we may howl in the midst of a sudden calamity. And why? Because we are not aware of the real gift in this given situation: opportunity.

Step Two: Be Aware of Opportunities 

There is a simple question that helps me to practice the second step of gratitude: "What's my opportunity here?" You will find that most of the time, the opportunity that a given moment offers you is an opportunity to enjoy--to enjoy sounds, smells, tastes, texture, colors, and, with still deeper joy, friendliness, kindness, patience, faithfulness, honesty, and all those gifts that soften the soil of our heart like warm spring rain. The more we practice awareness of the countless opportunities to simply enjoy, the easier it becomes to recognize difficult or painful experiences as opportunities, as gifts.

But while awareness of opportunities inherent in life events and circumstances is the core of gratefulness, awareness alone is not enough. What good is it to be aware of an opportunity, unless we avail ourselves of it? How grateful we are shows itself by the alertness with which we respond to the opportunity.

Step Three: Respond Alertly

Once we are in practice for being awake to surprise and being aware of the opportunity at hand, we will spontaneously be alert in our response, especially when we are offered an opportunity to enjoy something. When a sudden rain shower is no longer just an inconvenience but a surprise gift, you will spontaneously rise to the opportunity for enjoyment. You will enjoy it as much as you did in your kindergarten days, even if you are no longer trying to catch raindrops in your wide-open mouth. Only when the opportunity demands more from you than spontaneous enjoyment will you have to give yourself a bit of an extra push as part of Step Three.

The Review Process It helps me to review my own practice of gratefulness by applying to these three basic steps the rule I learned as a boy for crossing an intersection: "Stop, look, go." Before going to bed, I glance back over the day and ask myself: Did I stop and allow myself to be surprised? Or did I trudge on in a daze? Was I too busy to wake up to surprise? And once I stopped, did I look for the opportunity of that moment? Or did I allow the circumstances to distract me from the gift within the gift? (This tends to happen when the gift's wrappings are not attractive.) And finally, was I alert enough to go after it, to avail myself fully of the opportunity offered to me?

There are times, I must admit, when stopping at night to review my day seems to be the first stop on an express train. Then I look back and realize with regret how much I missed. Not only was I less grateful on those non-stop days, I was less alive, somehow numb. Other days may be just as busy, but I do remember to stop; on those days, I even accomplish more because stopping breaks up the routine. But unless I also look, the stopping alone will not make my day a truly happy one; what difference does it make that I am not on an express train but on a local if I'm not aware of the scenery outside the windows? On some days, I even find in my nightly review that I stopped and I looked, but not with alertness. Just yesterday, I found a huge moth on the sidewalk; I did stop long enough to put it in a safe spot on the lawn, just a foot away, but I didn't crouch down to spend time with this marvelous creature. Only faintly did I remember, at night, those iridescent eyes on the grayish brown wings. My day was diminished by this failure to stay long enough with this surprise gift to deeply look at it and to savor its beauty gratefully.

My simple recipe for a joyful day is this: Stop and wake up; look and be aware of what you see; then go on with all the alertness you can muster for the opportunity the moment offers. Looking back in the evening, on a day on which I made these three steps over and over, is like looking at an apple orchard heavy with fruit.

This recipe for grateful living sounds simple--because it is. But simple does not mean easy. Some of the simplest things are difficult because we have lost our childlike simplicity and have not yet found our mature one. Growth in gratitude is growth in maturity. Growth, of course, is an organic process. And so we come back to what I said at the beginning: To superimpose on the organic flow of gratitude a mental grid like a series of "steps" will remain arbitrary. When I am grateful, I am neither rushing nor slouching through my day--I'm dancing. What is true in dance class is true here too: Only when you forget to think of your steps, do you truly dance. 

http://www.gratefulness.org/readings/dsr_awake.htm

Gratefulness and the Power of Radical Sufficiency

          

Grateful living, or living in touch with the great fullness of life, has the ability to significantly and positively alter our lives and the larger world in which we live.

Grateful living asks us to purposefully direct our awareness to notice all that is already fully present and abundant in our lives - from the tiniest things of beauty to the grandest of our blessings - and in so doing, to take nothing for granted. Grateful living as a practice powerfully affirms that we can be in charge of our attention, and can point it towards that which serves the fullness of our learning, our lives, our relationships, and the world. And, amazingly, every single moment can offer us this opportunity…not a single moment need escape our gratefulness…even if it is simply to learn from that which is most difficult. We have the choice to be in touch with the “fullness” of everything.

In infinite ways, grateful living offers an unparalleled pathway to the experience of “enough,” and even more than enough, in our lives. Suddenly, the barren corners of our homes are rich with things for which to be thankful. What seemed lacking in our relationship now feels full to overflowing. Our bodies are miraculous. Electricity itself blows our minds. Our days can be one discovery after another of blessing and opportunity. And the earth can seem an endless symphony of beauty.

When we are in touch with enough-ness, when we feel like we are and have enough, we become less susceptible to cultural norms of complaint, envy, scarcity, comparison, and insatiability; all sources of suffering, and separation from ourselves, each other and the planet, and also the ways that we get caught in the “more is better” mentality. When we are so busy unconsciously rushing towards more, as Soul of Money author Lynne Twist says, we rush right over/past “enough” and do not even notice it…like an inconvenient speed-bump.

In this way, grateful living is an antidote to scarcity and insatiability. And it is radical because it establishes the only real, lasting conditions for generosity, kindness, compassion and the impulse to serve. When we are awake to all that is enough in our lives, we can turn our attention beyond ourselves. We need to feel our fullness in order to have anything truly meaningful to offer the world.

And since scarcity and insatiability are the drivers for so much that is unsustainable and unjust in our world right now, grateful living can be seen as not merely a salve of complacency and self-satisfaction, but as a protective impulse that wakes us up to act on behalf of the things for which we feel grateful. In this, gratefulness has the power to awaken us to greater purpose to preserve and tend the things we notice are worth cherishing – all the fragile blessing that surrounds us and is charged to our care.

Grateful living invites a radical experience of sufficiency, and sufficiency invites us toward using our lives and resources in more radically generous, open-hearted, and conscientious ways. This truth offers me hope - for our lives, each other and the world. And hope is a longing and blessing for which we can all be deeply grateful…

http://www.gratefulness.org/readings/gratefulness_sufficiency.htm