Appreciation During Hard Times
We get so caught up in our day to day lives, our hustle and bustle, our achieving nature – the wants that we all have. Wanting to acquire new things, conquer new goals. Always looking towards the next big thing.
We want, and we work hard, to gain new experience, a new phone, a new relationship, a new job, a promotion, we’re always chasing some-thing.
We’re so addicted to the pursuit of latest desire, that we often can’t even enjoy it once we obtain it. Because once we have that thing we’ve worked so hard to acquire with in our grasp, and its finally ours … we’re already busy looking at something else, plotting how we’re going to gain that something.
This inability to slow down, to stop fully, and to appreciate what we have in life is a funny trap we find ourselves in. And this inability to pause and appreciate can leave us miserable.
Because we’re always searching for something new, something out there, outside of us … outside of our current reality and circumstances – believing that once we find that perfect something we’ll finally be happy. We’ll have finally arrived in life and we’ll be able to put down our bags and rest. We’ll finally be able to enjoy it all.
But as you know, and I know, that’s not the case. There will never be enough. And to go on frantically jumping from one pursuit to the next, believing that eventually one of them will lead to never ending bliss, or a long lasting sense of fulfillment, is like swimming in a circle and hoping to make it to shore.
And for what? In reality, most of us live in abundance. We have …
- clean water
- grocery stores
- food on the table
- warm beds
- a place to call home
- friends
- family of some kind
- people who care for us
- clean clothing
- hospitals
- public transportation
- the internet
- cell phones with more technology in them than the original rocket ships.
If you have these things, I would say you’re doing just fine.
Now, I’m VERY aware those are what we have come to know as the bare minimum in our modern society. And there are many external factors that can make life seem quite uncomfortable, or even down right miserable.
Break ups of relationships , deaths of loved ones, the loss of a job, injuries, trauma, war, pandemics, and more … they’re all miserable. Going through any of those, or more than one at a time, can really have a huge impact on how we FEEL about ourselves and about life in general.
And this is very important.
Our internal felt state, how we FEEL in our own bodies and how we feel about ourselves, colours the lens through which we view the world around us.
Challenges, like the ones I’ve mentioned, can skew the way we view our lives, the world at large, and every interaction we have with others.
Challenges like those, if we allow them, by not noticing how they’re are effecting us, and if we don’t take the time to appreciate the good things that we DO have, can dull that lens through which you view the world.
And I don’t know about you, but I want my life to be in technicolour HD .
So regardless of where we find ourselves in life. Whether thats at the peak of its wave riding high, or in the trough feeling as though we’re about to down.
If we want to gain some perspective, if we want to ride that wave just a little more skillfully, if we want to be just a little happier – effortlessly … it’s important to take the time to pause, and appreciate what we have in our lives that makes it better.
To smell the flowers, even if it’s sunny outside or if we’re standing rain storm.
And that’s what we’ll be doing today with this mediation, cultivating appreciation for the beauty within our lives. Follow along by clicking on the meditation in the box above this post.
- Tim