Let’s stop taking anything about this life for granted.
Don’t let your world have to fall apart for you to open your eyes for the first time.
Sure there is tragedy everywhere and sure everyone has something better.
But look at your life right now. Look at what’s right in front of you.
I could be wrong, but my guess is that large parts of it are devastatingly beautiful.
There is grace in the provisions we are given.
And there is meaning in the relationships we forge.
In fact, there is little else.
When I woke up in the middle of the night, as I often did, I’d walk from one room to another to gaze at my sleeping husband tangled in the sheets and my daughters surrounded by their stuffed animals, all safe. I had everything I could possibly want—yet I was failing to appreciate it. Bogged down in petty complaints and passing crises, weary of struggling with my own nature, I too often failed to comprehend the splendor of what I had. I didn’t want to keep taking these days for granted. The words of the writer Colette had haunted me for years: “What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.” I didn’t want to look back, at the end of my life or after some great catastrophe, and think, “How happy I used to be
then, if only I’d realized it.”
-Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project