Gratitude and Perspective
"When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive—to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love." ~Marcus Aurelius
We all know that earth, the planet we live on, is a massive place. But it is incredibly small compared to our gigantic Sun, an ordinary star. That giant Sun is incredibly small compared to the rest of our solar system. There could also be more than hundreds of billions of stars and 40 other billion earth-sized planets (according to Kepler Space Telescope data) within just our galaxy that is known as the Milky Way. That is just one galaxy, but there are more than 100 billion galaxies in the universe (space.com), based on what we know about the universe and who knows beyond this universe. This fact demonstrates how physically small and insignificant we are compared to the rest of the universe. This peculiar realisation is a liberating reminder not to take life so seriously and that most things we worry about are insignificant. It reminds us to be grateful for our existence on a habitable planet with clean water and a safe atmosphere, to be thankful for the occurrence of the big bang (the beginning of our universe), for the earth's evolution and survival from several extinction events, for the atoms and molecules that make us who we are and for the universe that created us. Next time when you look up the stars at night, take a minute to reflect on all of this!
There is also so much more we can all be grateful for daily. But often, it's hard to see those things as we tend to take those for granted. We should all be thankful for the essential things in our lives, such as having a place to live, safety, good health, friends and families, jobs, and access to food and clean water. We can also be thankful for little things such as the beautiful nature surrounding us, music that makes us feel happy, the kindness of the people around us, the educational opportunities and the technology that enable us to connect with friends and families. That's so much more than what a lot of people in the world can say they have. While it might seem abstract, there are millions of people in the world at this very moment, who unfortunately don't have a place to live, don't have access to food regularly, suffer from several health issues and don't have the means to support themselves. So while we take all those for granted, we can be grateful for all we have. Even life experiences, whether positive or 'negative' experiences, are things we can be grateful for. As much as we can be thankful for having a positive experience such as travelling overseas with your friends or family, we can especially be thankful for the 'negative' experiences, as you learn the best lessons from those not-so-positive life experiences.
Even though life is 'long' and most of us would hopefully live for more than 80 years, if you zoom out and look at the broader picture, life is extremely short. You, me and everyone we know are here on earth for a short period. Time flies like a blink of an eye, so before you know it, days, weeks, months, and years pass. So when you wake up each day, it's another opportunity to be grateful and make the best use of that day, as there is no guarantee of tomorrow for any of us. As the quote says, "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right". When you realise that there is no guarantee of tomorrow and that when you die, you'll stay dead for a very long time, it's much easier to fear less about failures, external judgements and expectations. Too often, it is easy for us to get caught up with little things that don't matter, our flaws, mistakes, opinions of others and the things we can't control. So it's hard to develop such a positive perspective. But when you realise that you have honestly nothing to lose and everything to gain, it's much easier to make big, bold, positive decisions in life.
Understanding how short life is and being grateful for everything we have, no matter how small they seem, would make you worry far less about things you might not have. Understanding that you are only a tiny part of this massive rock, in a giant solar system, in a galaxy, in a universe will lead you to live and be kind, have fun, laugh, try and fail and do them all over again. Whatever you do in life, all you can do is try your best with compassion, honesty and gratitude. Ultimately, you realise that you can choose your dreams and choose to live an incredible life and make the best of the extremely short life you have here on earth!
