From the big things like our health, work, family, friends, personal safety - to the seemingly mundane things in our pampered lives - such as cars, water, heat, food, clothing, electricity, phones, computers, TV's...etc.
On a personal level, we don't appreciate being pain-free until we are filled with pain. From the simple pain of having a toothache, and being glad when it's gone - to the complex and difficult emotional and physical pain of a serious illness, addiction or dysfunctional relationship.
We take so many things for granted. We don't think about how nice it is to have a car until it breaks down, clean water (even hot and cold) until we lose ours or visit/live somewhere that doesn't have clean water...clean air...so many things to be thankful for.
Our culture, and it's consumer driven messages, distracts us into thinking we should be looking for happiness in physical or material things. We can never have enough things, be too rich or too thin. The lie is that we can have many many things, be rich and thin - and miserable.
Freedom comes from inside - being free to choose how we will live, freedom to respond honestly openly and with love and gratitude when appropriate and to make the best of bad situations by showing honor, courage and compassion...and moving on.
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Even in the worst conceivable surroundings we have the freedom to choose our response. Viktor Frankl writes in "Man's Search for Meaning" -
Even in the worst conceivable surroundings we have the freedom to choose our response. Viktor Frankl writes in "Man's Search for Meaning" -
"... In spite of all the enforced physical and mental primitiveness of the life in a concentration camp, it was possible for spiritual life to deepen."
"A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth — that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love."
Continue reading at The Question of God . Other Voices . Viktor Frankl | PBS
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We should remember to give thanks everyday for what we have, and every so often be shocked out of our 'taking things for granted' by losing something, finding something and waking up to what's happening in the present moment so we can appreciate all that we are blessed with.
