being thankful | chestercountyramblings

What is the thought process behind being thankful?

Are you thankful? Why are you thankful?

I saw this quote the other day about happiness and being thankful. It is above, super-imposed over one of my photos. It got me to thinking. (Yes, advanced warning this post is a flowing stream of consciousness.) How is it we are thankful (and happy) and why?

Being thankful for what you have can be paid forward quite simply. Human kindness, for example.

At fifty, have I lived a perfect life? No, but seriously, who here is without flaws on this planet? Life is a giant learning curve and we learn from our experiences good and bad, right?

I am thankful for my life, especially because it could have ended up so differently than it is now. I got through the ending of an unfortunate relationship (and that is putting it kindly), survived breast cancer, and found the love and life I deserve.

If God and fate hadn’t done a literal lift-out for me a few years ago, I would have been quite literally stuck in a life that would have become rather unpleasant and devoid of love and affection. So I am honestly and truly thankful.

I have discovered that truly unhappy people are quite often very angry people. They have a limited sense of personal accountability and are hyper-critical of everything and everyone around them. The ex-factor and one of his sisters are prime examples. I am truly sorry they aren’t happy, but their continued fascination with my life is well, psychologically interesting while also being creepy and pointless. It’s like they live on their own planet.

Obsessing over me is not only bizarre, but how can they waste so much negative energy? It’s just not healthy and well, life is short and they need to be responsible for their own happiness. It has been almost five years, so why bother? Who cares? I sure don’t.

Will I reference things that occurred during a relationship that spanned nigh on a decade? Sure, it is part of my life experience. I write about all sorts of life experience and other relationships. But why am I responsible for their happiness and/or misery of other people not part of my world? The answer is I am not, but I have accepted they will probably never move on. However, that is their stuck, not mine.

People who are oddly warped like this make me really think about what it is to actually be thankful and happy. I see what my life could have been and what it is now. I have someone who loves me and shares their life with me and are committed to our family. That is a far cry from being with someone who expected commitment but not only couldn’t really share their live, in the end even commit to a cell phone plan.

I am not the only person male or female my age (or younger or older) who has going through good and bad relationships. It’s life. But for some reason, the simple act of being thankful and happy just drives some people cuckoo. Probably because they aren’t either thankful or happy.

The thing about being truly thankful is acknowledging what it took to reach the path of happy. As human beings we are a work in progress, but to be able to roll with life’s punches and blessings is an acquired talent. For me, for that light bulb to go off truly, it took having breast cancer. Having to face your own personal sense of mortality shows you what your true mettle is. It also made me dig deep and look at what I wanted out of the rest of my life and the type of people I wanted to surround myself with.

A dear friend from high school asked us her friends, something interesting today:

“If you were on of 10 people still alive on the planet, how would you live differently?

Would you still wear make up, get dressed up in fancy clothes, put nice things in your home?

In other words, do you do the things you do now to make yourself happy or others happy? “

It might seem overly esoteric and philosophical to some, but you know, I get it. So what would you do? I would continue to do everything possible to make myself and my loved ones happy. I would be thrilled to give up make-up for the most part.

Another quote I read made me think:

“Life isn’t all about the happy times we have. It’s about living through all the challenges life has given us, and all we have ever been through.”

And then there was this cool thing I found on the Tiny Buddha website:

Why the Grass is Never Greener and How to Be Happy Today

By Katy Cowan

“If you worry about what might be, and wonder what might have been, you will ignore what is.” ~Unknown

Lifestyle. Opportunities. Wealth. Just think how far we’ve come in the past 100 years—especially when you look at what we have today compared with our great grandmothers’ generation.

My great grandmother married very young, lived in the same place her whole life, and had 11 children. She never had a “career” and never got a chance to go on a vacation. Her life was hard, poor, and lacking in any real opportunity.

I wonder if she ever dreamed about moving to another city, or transforming her life, or about seeing the world with just a backpack. I bet she did, but back then there weren’t as many opportunities as we have today…..But when there is a wealth of opportunities, choices, and places where we could choose to live, you’d think we’d all be happy, right? Wrong.

…..We can’t settle on what we already have or be satisfied with what we’ve got because we’ll always be wondering about the next big thing.

It’s called “the grass is always greener” syndrome. We think someone else is having a better time elsewhere. We make ourselves miserable by constantly thinking about the unknown in an endless quest to find happiness.

We lie awake at night torturing ourselves over what we should do next, wondering if we’re missing out on something big. We feel we’re wasting our lives if we’re not doing something more important.

There’s also this sense of time pressure, particularly with my generation who had the saying “The World is your Oyster” drilled into us from a young age.

This means there can be a sense of urgency, because we feel like we’re running out of time and should be doing something greater or somehow we’ll fail.

We also think we’re special and that our lives are destined to be adventurous, thrilling, and hugely successful. And when they’re not turning out that way? We become depressed. We want more. We get “grass is greener” syndrome.

….Focusing on things we don’t have is a recipe for disaster. It only leads to a miserable existence and causes us to forget what’s most important—and that’s what’s happening right now.

As John Lennon once said: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” And that’s certainly true……Mindfulness helps you to appreciate life as it happens. It stops us from agonizing over what might’ve been or what could be. It just brings us back to the present.….But whenever you feel yourself losing focus and wondering about where you’ll be happy next, bring yourself back to the present, look at what you already have, look around you and enjoy the moments that are happening right now.….Happiness is a state of mind.