You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December 2008.
“From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that we are here for the sake of each other – above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.”
~ Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
As 2008 draws to a close, I find my mind is led backwards in time as I re-evaluate the past twelve months and set my goals for the coming year. Outwardly, today will be spent getting ready for the New Year’s Eve bonfire with close friends and neighbors. It will be a festive day, with a focus on celebrating all of the good things we have accomplished this year. Today all our fears and insecurities concerning the future will be temporarily swept aside, and we will instead celebrate the wealth of our abundance, no matter how small our treasures may outwardly appear. As I look back on the past year, I find that the things I am most grateful for are the small things.
This past year, my personal focus has been on building a network marketing business. My days have been spent making phone calls and attending networking events. In the process, I’ve become very good at building relationships, both online and in person, and my life has become far richer precisely because of the friends I have made.
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.” Melody Beattie
Fear makes us do some drastic things that appear on the surface to be reasonable. For the past two years, for instance, I’ve been heavy into personal development, trying to be the best me that I can be. My iPod is filled with inspirational and motivational speakers like Eckhart Tolle, Wayne Dyer, and Joel Osteen, and with positive-thinking textbooks like Wallace Wattle’s The Science of Being Rich, Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, Jerry and Esther Hick’s Abraham series, and The Secret. I play that stuff constantly, sometimes letting them play all through the night when I should really be sleeping. My iPod is so filled with inspirational tracks that I don’t even have room to keep music on it any more. That really should have been my first clue that something was out of balance here. I mean, I’m a musician. Shouldn’t I be listening to music?
“Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend… when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present — love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure — the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience Heaven on earth.”
– Sarah Ban Breathnach
Pain has a way of getting our complete and undivided attention. When we are hurting — whether physically or emotionally — it is hard not to focus on the pain. The Law of Attraction tells us that whatever we focus on is what we will manifest in our lives, so if we focus on pain and misery, guess what? We’ll just keep getting more of the same. Easier said than done, right?
So how do we keep an attitude of gratitude when our pain is commanding all of our attention? How do we focus on abundance when our electricity is being shut off because we can’t find enough work to pay the bills? How do we focus on how grateful we are for the people in our lives when those very people are using or abusing us? How do we focus on how good we have it when depression holds us captive in a deep hole of dark despair and desolation? It seems impossible. It reminds me of that South Park episode when one of the kids had a gay dog. ”Don’t be gay, Sparky!” they kept telling him. Like that did any good. Don’t worry, be happy! Look on the bright side! Just be grateful for the good things! Just choose happiness! Keep an attitude of gratitude! When pain or depression have taken hold of us good and square, that kind of meaningless advice seems ridiculously naive. Yet, a healthy dose of gratitude is exactly what we need in those situations.
Welcome to my Living Gratitude blog. I’ve started this blog because I need to remind myself every day to be grateful for everything that I have. You see, I have a confession to make: I’m a chronic worrier. For decades it’s been my job to predict cash flow scenarios for my clients so that they could make informed financial decisions. I always felt I needed to include the worst-case scenario in those projections because what if the worst really happens? People need to have a plan, don’t they? When economic times were flush, my tendency toward pessimism was just a quirky annoyance. But now that the economy really has tanked and “the worst that could happen” seems to really be happening … well, my level of worrying has gone way past fear into an almost constant terrified panic. It’s not pretty, trust me. So I invite you to join me on my quest to leave my fearful thoughts behind me, and to adopt in their place a constant and abiding attitude of gratitude.
