What are you thankful for? Is it the IPod or the latest fashions on the market today? Are you thankful for the opportunity to be able to go to the shopping mall and find the trinket that you feel that someone that you know may desire this season? What are you really thankful for this year?
All too often we lose sight of the real things to be thankful for. We become preoccupied with the things that we feel have more meaning than they actually do and to a fault we fail to embrace the things that hold much more significance in our lives. Have we become so conditioned over time that the little big things in our lives have fallen so far down the scale of importance that they become blips on the radar?
In our personal lives we become obsessed worrying about events that in many cases are outside our personal control. When we reflect upon the journey of our lives up to this point we disregard some of the things that we should be thankful for because in many cases we look upon them as failures or in sorrow. Each experience of joy or pain becomes a building block in the makeup of our overall personal individuality. The easy thing to do is to hold animosity and regret for the things that caused us pain, the harder thing to do is to look upon these events and be thankful that they occurred in your life. When we reflect on relationships that just did not work out for one reason or another we disregard the very fact that those relationships helped shape how we embrace the relationships that we are in currently. When we reflect on the jobs we held in the past in so many cases we fail to embrace the experience that we gained that allows us skills that we hold today. All too often we would like to reflect with sorrow those loved ones that have passed from our lives without being thankful that we were blessed with the pure joy that we were able to have them in our lives in the first place.
What importance do you hold in the fact that each day you live someone is thankful that you impact their lives in ways that you may not recognize? Are you thankful for the opportunity to make a person smile, or teach a child something new that they will be able to utilize for the rest of their lives? Are you thankful to those that shared those same opportunities in their lives to teach you something new or to make you smile? The little things in life are easy to overlook and all too often we forget to be thankful that we were able to share in meaningful things that endure the test of time.
When you break down who you are today and reflect upon the path that got you to this point, can you say that you are thankful that you were able to learn from the mistakes of the past? Are you able to allow yourself the opportunity not to regret that they occurred, but to be thankful that they did so that you may have the opportunity pass those lessons on to others? When we look at what we really should be thankful for we should not always be thankful for the easy things in life but those that were the true measure of the building blocks that shaped us. All too often we set a standard that has allowed for material things to have more meaning than they actually should. We have lost sight in the fact that it is not the debts that we owe and the divisions that they create that should be the basis that allows for the breakdown of what is meaningful in our lives. Instead of seeking what is perceived as greener pastures while sacrificing what thankful things that you have, all too often lends to our ability of not being able to be content with the significant things in life.
When we reflect on what we are truly thankful in life have we forgotten that many things go into the mix that are overlooked. Focus should not always be on the material things that we can give or events in our lives that we may have considered troublesome. At times the most thankful things are those that we may not consider to be positive, but have helped shape who we are today and should be allowed on the list of what we should be thankful for. What is it that you consider significant to be thankful in your life?
