Dear Friends,
Today my gratitude log gone blog is one hundred days old! Allow me to celebrate the occasion (extensively) by telling you how Gratitude and I became friends. It’s a long tale. Consider this posting the celebratory weekend edition!
The Islamic Revolution had wiped out my life as I knew it. The Shah’s regime had fallen, and his subjects were captured. Terror reigned in the capital and people were being executed right and left without trial.
All of a sudden, the dreaded Fridays at my parents’ house stopped being boring because my father was not there any more – he was in prison, amongst thousands of innocents.
That’s when I cut a deal with God. I was going to befriend Gratitude and he was going to return my father to me – alive! He kept his end of the bargain, and so did I - for a while!
A year after my father was released, we fled our country. The memories of the dark days and the sleepless nights started to fade. As uncertainty, immigration, isolation, unemployment and troubled marriage took centre stage, being safe lost its lustre. There was nothing left to be grateful for. The same "short term memory" that pushed my life forward, helping me to forget my pains, losses and traumas fostered my ungratefulness.
Gratitude is about respect and appreciation.
As the years passed and my life underwent major changes, hardship gradually loosened its grip. I realised that it was not God’s fury that had placed me in the middle of a revolution, but his generosity that had saved me.
As in the past thirty-five years Life and I have continued our "Dance of Gains and Losses," I finally came to recognise the value of my blessings. This time, I opened my heart to gratitude in appreciation, not in desperation.
A year after my father was released, we fled our country. The memories of the dark days and the sleepless nights started to fade. As uncertainty, immigration, isolation, unemployment and troubled marriage took centre stage, being safe lost its lustre. There was nothing left to be grateful for. The same "short term memory" that pushed my life forward, helping me to forget my pains, losses and traumas fostered my ungratefulness.
Gratitude is about respect and appreciation.
As the years passed and my life underwent major changes, hardship gradually loosened its grip. I realised that it was not God’s fury that had placed me in the middle of a revolution, but his generosity that had saved me.
As in the past thirty-five years Life and I have continued our "Dance of Gains and Losses," I finally came to recognise the value of my blessings. This time, I opened my heart to gratitude in appreciation, not in desperation.
I have learnt to see the good even in the bad because I know worst can always be worse. I try to live according to the Buddhist concept of Impermanence. It’s the knowledge that all might be taken away from me that makes me grateful for every blessing I posses - not the fear of it.
Have a wonderful weekend full of blessings, everyone!
Lili,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your words of wisdom. You and your Gratitude log are always a source of inspiration. I am blessed with your friendship!
Wow Lili!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your moving life story. (Or should I say a brief, but moving, synopsis of your life story.)
So much to take in... followed by a sincere pause for reflection.
That was quite the entry today. Makes us all want to be grateful for what we have.
ReplyDelete