Grateful for every day

If all you did was just look for things to appreciate you would live a joyous, spectacular life.

If there was nothing else that you ever came to understand other than just look for things to appreciate, it's the only tool you would ever need to predominantly hook you up with who you really are. That's all you'd need.

---Abraham

Yes, at last, a simple quote I can absolutely understand and agree with.  Do you know that there have been brilliant people on this planet, those with magnificent minds who have still struggled with the existential questions. Questions such as 'why are we here?' 'what is the purpose of life?' you know, those sort of questions.  

This monkey mind business, the way most of us westerners live our lives, wandering around with chattering, often untamed, monkey minds is probably a recipe for confusion, disorder and definitely a source of unhappiness.  So, I guess, training the mind is probably the single, most important thing we can set out to do for ourselves.  Learning to be happy, it is what those enlightened people call 'living in the moment' or 'living in the Now' with a capital N.  

Could it really be true that just by being appreciative can bring a spectacular life?  Well, I suppose that depends on what you call spectacular, or maybe it is the appreciation that colours the extraordinary into the ordinary. Maybe it is the final part of the quotation that matters, hooking up with who you really are.  There it is.  Who you really are.  There is the mystery.  

The part of the quote which hints at the possibility of something more, as yet undiscovered, a part of ourselves we all need to seek out, engage with, enjoy, a way to empower ourselves, our greater selves can hook up with the little me who is running around with a monkey mind, often in terror and distress at trying to make sense of it all.  

Yes, there is a bigger picture. Using appreciation and gratitude is a well known tool for helping to rise above the lower negative states, if nothing else, by stepping out into the world on a vibration of appreciation and gratitude will at least make life more pleasant for those people surrounding us.  Even if we find ourselves meeting people who hate us even more because we are appearing to be happy. 

 When you think about it, what right has anyone got not to be happy?  No-one has a right to life. Any one of us can have our life taken away at any moment. Life is too short not to experience some form of inner happiness and joy, and life is definitely too short to spend it hating other people because they have a smile on their face. 

Smiling in the face of hatred.

Lots of love and light to everyone who needs it.

Tamasin x