A Time to be Grateful

I often fear that I become too swept up in the moment, and do not have enough strength of character to be aware of how grateful I should be. It is human nature to look beyond those closest to us. We disregard those who play vital roles in our lives, not because we don't love them or recognise them, but because when something is placed right in front of us, most of the time, we are blind to it.

When things go wrong, naturally, we look for someone else to blame. We don't like to believe that it is us ourselves that has done the wrong thing. However, when things go right, we turn inwards and celebrate our own success, forgetting about all the other people that helped us and guided us along the way.

I'm not saying for a second that we shouldn't celebrate our own successes, because of course we should. Instead, however I am suggesting that we should be reminding ourselves that we need to look to the outside to thank those around us for all their help, kindness and support.

Someone once told me that you can never say thank you too many times, and I think that is really true. Being grateful to those around us, is paramount to success. When we are able to recognise the input of our family, friends, teachers and any one else, then we are giving part of our success to them, and allowing them to share in the good things as well as the bad.

I am constantly reminded of the look in my teacher's face, when I made an effort to tell her good news. The sincerity of which she received my news, made me painfully aware of how much bad news I share, but more than that, the intimacy of good news, when it is such a rare occurrence. It made me see, for the first time, the many ways saying thank you can be said, and more importantly, the power of which being grateful can hold.

Frankly, we are in times of universal uncertainty, when most of us are paralysed by fear of the unknown - or more accurately, fear of knowing that we don't really know what is to come on a global scale.

But I do think, however insignificant it may be on a global scale, that the only thing you can do to fight back against those who have stripped away their humanity, is by working on humanity. Trying to make the world a better place, one thank you at a time.

-LF, LR and MG