I firmly believe that the key to happiness is appreciating what you have. So I jumped on the FB gratefulness bandwagon and started sharing what I’m thankful for. Some of my updates looked like this:
and this:
I stopped updating my blessings on FB after a few days and while I still love reading others statuses I won’t be updating mine any more. The reason isn’t that I ran out of things to be thankful for, but rather that I have a hard time separating all the things I’m thankful for.
I’m thankful for my life.
Truthfully, everything about it. My husband, my health, my job, my family, my friends, food, my car, financial stability, my apartment, Omaha, etc etc. It’s hard to separate all those from one another because they all are a stitch in the fabric in the quilt of my life.
I love my life. Sure there’s stress, and bumps in the road from time to time. I’d love to lose weight and get more sleep. Josh and I sometimes have disagreements and having my family halfway across the country can be hard. But the sum of my life is greater than the parts. When I take the good and the bad of my life and add them in some hypothetical equation I always end up with way more positives than negatives.
When I was dealing with anxiety last year I remember thinking that I just wanted to feel like I could enjoy all my blessings. Worrying every day about the possibility of a health issue made me think about all the things I didn’t want to lose. For the first time in my life I gained perspective on my life, and realized how truly fortunate I was. When in my mind there was the fear that it could all be taken away from me, I stopped wishing for something different or something more, and just wanted what I already had.
Now that that constant anxiety is gone from my life, that feeling of thankfulness has only grown. I’m getting to live and enjoy my life. And it’s a good life. So instead of parceling it out and being thankful for some parts while ignoring the rest, I’m taking a step back and appreciating everything. Life is a gift, and I feel blessed to be able to live it each and every day.
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