By Vincent Kituku
Maybe you have had time to reflect on your blessings, including being alive, having good health and/or a job. Maybe you celebrate Thanksgiving Day with loved ones. In your quiet reflections you consider the good things that you have or what has happened to you in the last 12 months. Don’t quit being thankful.
An attitude of gratitude must be a lifestyle but not an act or ritual that occurs once a year. If you make it a practice to count your blessings on a daily basis, you will realize that each day is a Thanksgiving Day. Just think about the simple basics of life: a clean glass of water that you don’t have to travel miles for. You may not even have to worry about your next meal. In terms of clothes, your main challenge in the morning is to select the colors that reflect the season or your mood for that day.
Having these life support basics is a struggle millions in parts of this world go through daily. If in addition to the above you have someone who loves you (a family or friend), you are in many ways better off than many who long for unconditional love. In this list of simple things that we shouldn’t take for granted, consider it a double blessing if you still have a job.
What we should not forget any day we wake up and find ourselves still walking on American soil is the blessing of living in a free country (special thanks to all those in our armed services). Our dreams to live up to our potential and the ability to enjoy the fruit of our labor and other aspects of progressive living are possible because of the freedom we have in this land.
However, there is another level of thankfulness, albeit experienced by fewer people. That is the fulfillment you can enjoy daily because you play (or played) a role in giving someone else a better life. When you visit the sick, help a senior citizen, pay for the meal of an armed services man or woman, or coach young people, you find another source of thankfulness, the depth of which can only be experienced.
Yes, it is wonderful to be blessed with material possessions, to have a great family, health and a job or a thriving business. It is great to achieve your goals. Yet, it is marvelous to reach beyond self and provide either resources, wisdom or time for a fellow human being to have an easier moment of life.
Soon you start understanding that what you give is what you keep. Even an insignificant memory of your good deed can turn a “cloudy day” into sunshine. An unexpected thank you note can be the inspiration you need to carry on for another day.
Thus we should be thankful for what we have and get out and make a difference in other people’s lives to continue being….even more grateful.
Dr. Vincent Muli Wa Kituku, motivational speaker and author of “Overcoming Buffaloes at Work & in Life,” is the founder and executive director of Caring Hearts and Hands of Hope, a non-profit organization that raises tuition and fees for poor orphans and other children from poverty-stricken families in Kenya. Contact him at vincent@kituku.com or (208) 376-8724.
