by 
Happy Gratefulness Friday everyone!
A few hours ago, I woke up with some frustrations on my mind. I’ve been experiencing an issue with my apartment that I thought had solved itself, only to realize in the past 24 hours that there was more work to be done. I was frustrated because of the inconvenience and unfairness of the matter: Why should I need to invest more time in this issue when I diligently took the instructed steps to rectify the problem in the first place?
My frustration over this inconvenience in my life quickly dissipated when I noticed the warning on my Google homepage: There was a tsunami alert for various countries and islands in the Pacific Ocean due to an 8.9 magnitude earthquake that had hit Japan last night.
In the few minutes of stewing in my personal grievances of investing “more work” into solving a problem, thousands upon thousands were suffering from the destruction of a natural disaster which they had absolutely no control over.
So while I was upset that I had to take further preventative action to solve my dilemma, the people affected by this crisis had absolutely no control over what would happen to them.
Keep reading after the jump for some of my insights on today’s terrible destruction, and how we can learn to empower our own thoughts and feelings with grateful reflection of our own lives’ bounty and compassion to those who are in dire need of our strength & love today.
For more gratefulness Friday posts, feel-good motivation can always be found in the positivity category of Sammy Davis Vintage!
Thank you for supporting Sammy Davis Vintage today and always! If you have been affected by the earthquake or tsunami, or know someone who has, I am sending you STRENGTH today so that you can move forward with faith in your abilities to persevere with positivity and zeal to live life’s every moment.
xx, SD
I am grateful for … Not Loving Life for its Length
Ever notice that you can enjoy something so much, and it only was … just a moment?
Time has no “scale” or “measure” for fulfillment. We can live for one day, 10 or 100 years — no matter the “length” of our lives, the fulfillment of it will never be “complete” by some sort of universal definition whether we pass in our youth or pass in our old age.
The only definition that matters is yours: in enjoying that moment, and this one, and the next one, always.
This is a heavy topic, which is why I starting my gratefulness checklist with it and also keeping it short, sweet and meaningful for everyone. Today’s death toll will be high, and this is a negative. However, a positive is that each and every person who may no longer be with us lived their lives without feeling “unfulfilled.”
I believe that for those of us blessed with clear minds and hearts, we don’t feel a need to seek more fulfillment. We are just … fulfilled. And so, if we were to say, be hit by a bus today or to learn that we were terminally ill with cancer, that fulfillment wouldn’t change. It would remain the same and so would our meaningful, magical time on this planet.
Living a fulfilled life can be hard in moments. We go to bed unhappy and wake up still disgruntled. We go on vacations to add “fun” into our lives, forgetting that we can create fun wherever we are at any given moment. We create a wishlist of hopes and desires and ambitions that must be crossed off in order for us to feel any sense of worth or well-being.
That graph I just wrote? We all feel this way at one point or another. But the more we can awaken ourselves to the negativity of those thoughts, and how those thoughts really do nothing to help us feel grateful for our lives now or provide any sense of “solution” to these problems we have created for ourselves, then we can begin to feel the FREEDOM of fulfillment no matter our age, no matter our circumstances, and no matter when we are destined to pass.
I am grateful for … Carpe Diem
Tattooed on my left wrist is the Latin phrase “Carpe Diem,” or in English language, “Seize the Day.”
I used to — and admittingly will sometimes default to this — “seize the day” in all of the wrong ways. Seizing the day was about getting the most done that I possibly could, so that I could show others in my life that I was a talented, commendable individual. I used Carpe Diem as a MO for achievement so that I could garner fame and flattery from others.
As I continue to forge my own path of self development and share some of my thoughts with you, I recognize how seizing the day for anyone but yourself is not seizing the day at all. Seizing the day is in doing what gives you satisfaction. It’s in loving yourself so that you can deeply love others. It’s in deciding when to say no to so that you can say yes to your heart’s truest, deepest desires.
Carpe Diem is not in pleasing others — that will get your satisfaction nowhere. True, it may elevate your endorphins for a fake “high,” but the real high in life is not to be equated with winning awards, or being promoted, or even tackling that day’s “to-do” list.
The high of life is knowing that you have the strength to seize the day for what it is, what it will be and what it will become. In a sense, it’s about letting go, and not controlling.
When we can let go of trying to “get things done” and force satisfaction from everything that we do, then we begin to see just how much satisfaction already exists which we don’t have to “create.” All we have to do … is open our hearts, let go of control and see it with our eyes … so that we may seize.
I am grateful for … Snapping Back to Reality
Flashback to the beginning of today’s post: I was frustrated about a very minuscule thing in my life. I was choosing to revel in its negativity instead of seeing some sense of positivity. I forgot that reveling in negativity only creates more negativity. The son of negativity? It’s not positivity! It’s — you guessed it! — more negativity.
Sometimes it’s hard to snap back to reality until we quite literally get hit. The tragedy of Japan was just that snap I needed, and maybe you needed, too.
The one true thing about life: every single moment matters. And mother nature, or the universe, or God, or the sun/moon/stars … whatever it is that you use as a centering “force” of faith in your life … does not weigh your life by the number of moments you’ve lived.
Which is why, as the quote goes, “It is not the amount of breaths you take — it’s the moments that take your breath away.”
So today, as we continue to send strength to those who have lost hope and home, reflect on the moments that have taken your breath away … today. Not yesterday, not the future. But right here, right now.
You’ll begin to see that even the simplest things are worth having gratefulness for. And with that constant stream of gratefulness, your life will be fulfilled no matter its length.
Leave a Reply