Being grateful

Read time: 6 minutes

Statistical miracle

The odds of being alive are 1 in 102,685,000 . That's a 10 followed by 2.685.000 zeroes.

I repeat: The chance of you being alive NOW where YOU ARE is hundreds of times lower than winning the lottery 2 times in a row.

You are by any definition an absolute miracle. For you to be alive right now your whole bloodline of ancestors had to not be broken.

That means hundreds of generations that had to successfully have the circumstances to meet, be healthy enough to breed and survive at the very least until a child is born.

You know statistically it’s very improbable for you to even be alive. By having a beating heart right now, by breathing, by reading these very words you are, second by second, acting out a miracle.

“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.” – Epictetus

Comparing

Let’s do an imagination exercise: The year is 1800. You are the king / queen of England.

In theory you are the most powerful man / woman in the whole world at the time. Let’s see how good your life would have been as a king back then compared to how it is now:

Then: You have servants. You ask someone to do something for you, and they shall do it within their human capacities.

Now: You have a powerful tool in your pocket which has something called an “assistant”. It is up 24/7, never needs a rest and if used properly can do a lot more in a lot less time than a servant ever could.

Then: You can travel anywhere on the globe, but it would take at least a few days if not weeks even to move around Europe. (28 days from UK to Australia)

Now: You have extremely cheap flights which in a matter of hours can take you to the other side of the planet. ( 16.5 hours from UK to Australia )

Then: You can read whatever book you want ( or more appropriate – whatever book you can find).

Now: You have this unimportant thing you might have heard of called “the internet” which is a huge information server housing all of humanity’s knowledge. You can buy any book that has ever been written on any subject ever and not only get it as a normal book, or as words on your magic brick. No, no, no. You can also get in a format called an “audiobook” where someone will read it to you at any time, anywhere, under any circumstance.

Then: You can communicate with people, but not very far away. Communication by letter even in your country takes a few good days. (back then it took 14 days to send a letter from New York to Philadelphia)

Now: You now have completely free services that allow you to send messages right away on the other side of the globe. Not only words, but also pictures, videos, GIFs, documents, audio recordings, hiperlinks.

Then: If you want to capture an incredibly beautiful scenery, or have a picture of your pet, you need at least a few good hours for a great painter to do his work and it may not look as real

Now: You now can use your magic brick to take photos or videos at a higher quality than any camera could have even 30 years ago

Life appears to be much better nowdays than it was even 200 years ago, yet we always forget how good we have it.

Gratefulness checklist

“Being thankful is not always experienced as a natural state of existence, we must work at it, akin to a type of strength training for the heart.” – Larissa Gomez

Gratitude, like anything else in life is a habit. You can work on it. The more that you use gratitude, the more automatic it will become.

What has worked for me is a reminder every day of the gifts life has bestowed upon me. Either a checklist to be revised every day, or writing down 5 things I’m grateful for that day.

Here is a quick example of a gratefulness checklist:

Life has been very fortunate to me because I:

- Have a roof above my head (150.000.000 – 2% of world’s population is homeless);

- Have running water (785 million people – 10% of world’s population lack even a basic drinking-water service);

- Have access to electricity (942 million people – over 10% of world’s population do not have access to electricity);

- Am not currently living in a warzone (1 in 6 children live in war zones);

- Am not in absolute poverty (3 billion – 50% of world’s population live on less than $2.50 a day);

- Have access to humanity’s information archive, a.k.a. the internet (52% of world’s population are not able to use the internet);

- Am alive right now (odds of 1 in 102,685,000);

Since you are reading this, I suppose you meet all the above requirements, so congratulasions! You have been given the lucky card at the game of life!

But my pain

By now you may have thought about your struggles and said “Yeah, but you don’t understand what I’m going through!”. Maybe you are right.

Maybe I truly don’t understand what you’re going through, but what I do know is that there’s no reason not to appreciate what you have and where you are right now. You will always have problems. Embrace the fact that you have opportunity to have that particular problem.

“But I don’t make enough money” – people living below the poverty line would kill to be able to make as much as you do.

“But I don’t have time to read” – there’s at least a little girl somewhere who was not allowed to go to school and would give everything to have the chance to know how to read.

“But my parents” – there’s at least 1 kid who would be incredibly thankful to grow up with a roof over his head and people who cared enough to feed him instead of bouncing from orphanage to orphanage.

“But school is too hard” – people who never afforded school would not wince at the thought of doing homework.

I am not suggesting you give up your goals, be complacent or stop pursuing what you are pursuing. I just wish to remind you to be thankful for what you have and where you are right now. Whatever you may take for granted may be another’s treasure.

That’s real gratefulness. Acknowledging your cup is overflowing and pouring others a droplet of your pool which for them may be an ocean.

“You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Conclusion

I would like you to meet Nick Vujicic.

According to Wikipedia, Nick was born with tetra-amelia syndrome, a rare disorder (called phocomelia) characterized by the absence of arms and legs.

He is a man born without arms and legs, yet this guy has a wife, 4 children, has created 8 books, is an entrepreneur and a motivational speaker that has toured the world talking about his hopeful attitude dispite his great adversity.

How can a man who was virtually born an amputee lead such a fulfilling life? How can he be so happy?

I think I should let him tell you: