Be Grateful, Don't Complain

It is disheartening that some people will only focus on what they wish to have but have not had, yet they are not grateful for the things they did not wish for but have. You see, it is true that all your needs have not been met but at least, for the ones that have been met, you should be grateful. Even if you have lost a couple of things, you should be grateful that it stopped at a couple of things and not everything. The truth is, there must be obvious reasons to be grateful.

Instead of focusing on your needs, you should learn to focus on your blessings and count them, you will realize that you can only be grateful. You will be surprised that some of the things you call challenges are actually answers to many people's wishes. The truth is, many people are praying and wishing to be in your current position and you are still ungrateful for it. If it is possible to switch challenges with people, you will be shocked at the number of people that are willing to take your own challenges and give you theirs.

It is worthy to note that even the air we breathe should form part of the things to be grateful for. One of my mentors shared a real life experience. He went to visit someone in the hospital who was admitted. On getting there, he met them in the middle of a procedure. A machine was connected to the patient that draws out blood from the patient's body into another machine and then returns the blood back to the body.

Being curious, he asked what the machine was, because he had not seen anything like that before. The doctor explained to him that the patient's body cannot oxygenate blood, so they had to withdraw the blood, oxygenate it mechanically and then put it back to the body. Now the surprising thing is that oxygen was very present in the room because everyone else was breathing in fine, but it was not available to the patient.

Still curious, my mentor asked the doctor how much the procedure cost. To his surprise, the doctor said "£9,000 per week". Imagine, just one biological process is costing this much in a week, have you asked yourself how many biological processes are going on in your body per second and you are not paying for them? You see, just to be able to draw in air and oxygenate the blood is something to be grateful for.

The same road you went through, some other people did the same but never came back. It is not because you were more qualified to live than them, nor because you are more careful than them. Each time your thoughts want to remind you of what you do not have, remind them of the many things you have.

One of the motivational speakers that inspire me is Nick Vujicic. He had a birth deformity that made him to be born without hands and legs. However, he never saw disabilities in this and he did not allow it to dissuade him from going after his dreams. He never saw himself as being inferior to others and he did not have the thoughts that life cheated him. Rather he continued giving life his best, coupled with a heart of gratitude. Now he has risen to become one of the foremost motivational speakers. Here's one of his short motivational pieces.

Imagine someone without limbs being happy and grateful, what reasons do you have not to be grateful? If you can only shift your focus from the areas that you think are not working and focus on the areas that are working in your favour, you will see plenty of reasons to be grateful.

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