‘Gratitude is the closest thing to beauty manifested in an emotion’ – Mindy Kaling 

‘Never let the things you want make you forget the things you have’ – Sanchita Pandey 

‘The power of finding beauty in the humblest things makes home happy and life lovely’ – Louisa May Alcott 

It is easy to be ungrateful or grateful, regardless of circumstances. 

I remember travelling, as a child, to remote places where people lived very different lives. No solid roof, no car, no organised schooling. The people there didn’t think of themselves as having nothing. I also didn’t think of them as having nothing. They may have had natural bounty, loving families and friends, games and household tasks to keep them occupied, a life free of hurrying and fake structures created by humans. 

At some point, when I got older and started working to ‘build a good life’ and ‘stand on my own two feet’ and ‘be productive’ I forgot this mindset I had as a child. I forgot that everything has beauty and that we have to be grateful for it. I started to think that I needed to have to this or that or be this or that and frankly gratitude all but disappeared from my life. 

Life has an uncanny ability to balance the good and the bad. Whatever ‘good’ thing you aspire to be, to have, to become will have a downside. What better realisation than this to keep you in the moment. In the now. Focusing not on what you aspire to be, to have or to become but what your life looks like right now. This is not to say that one cannot aspire to build or have something different but to remember that our reality is what is happening now and that that is all we are guaranteed. 

This is not to say that I do not believe in equality of things basic and essential to life. I truly do and my career is built on this wish. However, I think that however much you think you have or don’t have in this moment, there are always things to be grateful for. 

I started an exercise at the start of the year where I spoke out loud the things I am grateful for. I didn’t do it at a specific time of day, or limit myself to a certain number of things. I just started by looking around me and then thinking further. I named big, huge things like my house or my community, my family but also little things like ‘I am grateful for this tasty apple’. I think it truly changed the way my brain works. I’m sure there is science around this. I think I mentioned before, I am burnt out by looking for science behind simple things so I haven’t delved deeper into this just yet. I am currently just enjoying the effects. 

Now, when I look around my house, I see things that I have previously said out loud that I am grateful for and this makes me so happy. It also helps me see what I am not grateful for which helps me start the process of removing things from my life. 

Right now, I am grateful that it is mango season and we have lots of mangoes in the house!