I talked to a friend the other day, same age as me, who had suffered a stroke just a month ago. He was still working hard on his physical recovery, without guarantees for a complete one. His spirit, though, was full of peace, wisdom, love, and most of all: Gratitude. Gratitude for the clarity on his life this incident had brought to him. For him, his stroke was an incredible gift.
I was deeply moved. And it had me think about the power of perspectives – and about how we can choose to turn every moment, every event, into an opportunity – into a gift.
This also reminded me of a TED talk I had recently seen, given by a monk and interfaith scholar: David Steindl-Rast gracefully explains how – in contradiction to our intuition – gratefulness doesn’t come as a consequence of happiness, but that, it works the exact opposite way.
If you’ve ever caught yourself thinking you'll be grateful once you're just a little bit better off, think again!
So you might ask yourself: What am I grateful for in my life? What am I grateful for this week? This day? And who would you like to express your gratefulness to? …sharing between both of you a spark of this thing called happiness –
Thank you for listening.