Ten Gratitudes

 
10. I am grateful for warm socks when my feet are cold.  In 2009 I did a lot of work with San Diego’s homeless community.  And while our city is warmer than most places during the day, at night it gets COLD.  Every time my feet get cold, I think about the people in the East Village who don’t have the luxury of slipping on a pair of warm socks.
 
9. I am grateful for friends and family who care about me and stay connected.  While working with the homeless community, I would receive calls all the time from distraught people looking for their missing family members… hoping that their friend or family member may have passed through our shelter or food bank.  I always did my best for those families, and I’m thankful for those who would call for me.
 
8. I am grateful for my bed and the roof over my head.  Especially on rainy winter nights.
 
7. I am grateful for my full belly and access to nutritious food.  Hunger, fear, and scarcity are horrible daily companions.  Sometimes at the food bank, the only food we had to offer people was soda, cookies, and saltine crackers… assuaging their hunger but not nourishing their bodies.  I’d want to cry with thanks – and the people visiting the food bank sometimes did – whenever we got a decent protein and actual vegetables.
 
6. I am grateful for my access to electricity and hot water.  It’s amazing how quickly a lack of access to these two things will push you to the edge of the social grid.
 
5. I am grateful for my ability to create. Life is all about creation.  Simply by being alive, we are creating change… even if it’s simply changing the cells within our own bodies.  There is power in our ability to generate… whether it’s creating opportunity, creating a “thing,” another person, an idea, an action, an experience, a way of life.  When we feel powerless, I think sometimes that’s because we’ve lost sight of our ability to create.
 
4. I am grateful for my gifts, capacities, and talents… especially my capacity for wonder and joy.  Buddhists call it “beginner’s mind.”  I think of it as channeling my inner five-year-old.  Take a moment to see things for the first time, and see how you feel!  :^D
 
3. I am grateful for the the gifts, capacities, and talents of others.  Someone enters a string of zeros and ones into a magic box, and my favorite online computer game, Sushi Cat, results.  (Wow!) Someone decides to taste that milk that was left in a barrel for WAY too long, and suddenly the world has cheese!  (Hooray!)  I constantly see – and delight in – the magic other people create!
 
2. I am grateful for being able to pee without pain.  Good health is a gift we don’t typically appreciate until it’s gone.  I am grateful for my lack of a toothache, I am grateful for being able to pee without pain!
 
1. I am grateful for you.  Yes, you!  We may know each other well, we may know each other not at all.  And still you’re here!  You inspire me, you amaze me, you make this world a better place to be a part of.  So thank you.
 
What are you grateful for?