Monday, January 1st, 2024
Dear All,
I don’t know about you, but my life is immediately improved when I choose to practice appreciation. It takes about 5-10 seconds to come up with something I love about my life, or something I appreciate in comparison to others who have it much, much worse. In just under ten seconds, my chemistry, my mindset, and my attitude…can be changed for the better. That’s the power of mindfulness and gratitude.
This year, I’ll be sharing my appreciations each day. Below in the comment section, I invite you to share back. Or share forward. Or just say, “Hi.” I love hearing from you!
Today, I am grateful to be alive.
But, what does that mean?
Our lives are so brief as to be barely mentionable, in the big scheme of things. Of course, the life of our sun is equally short, when viewed on a Cosmic scale, so I don’t feel too badly about being essentially irrelevant. Aside from a tiny collection of humans, who may be remembered for a scant handful of centuries, by a few living humans who oddly pay attention to human history at all — those we do impact during our blips of existence very quickly follow us into the afterlife, leaving few to none to recollect the vast majority of us.
All of which brings us to the inevitable, ever-present question, in the back of most of our minds: “What’s the point?”
Today, I decided that “the simple point” of being alive, is to be alive. To relish all that life offers, when compared to what non-life offers. To see life, we must see its absence, because life is the presence of those things which do not exist in the non-alive or the once-alive. Imagine being a boulder. Not much happening, eh? And even when things do happen (tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, asteroids), you can be shaken up, blown across the land, melted or washed away — and you won’t even know it happened.
Not so, for us humans.
Whatever is happening (be it good or bad, great or terrible), “being alive” is a miraculous opportunity to experience the inner and outer universe, through the senses of a body, briefly created for our own particular use. We never share it with anyone else. It cannot be passed on. It is the only “thing” on Earth that is uniquely ours, and that is so very special.
I also appreciate each minute of my life, because — as I age — I am increasingly aware that when this body dies, my adventure on Earth will be over (unless reincarnation is real, which would be cool). So, I’m not wasting a minute of my trip in this body, on this planet, in this solar system, at this time…
How about you? Are you grateful to be alive? Why?