As I walked outside in the sun last week, I found myself feeling completely overwhelmed with gratitude.
I have lived a very fortunate life and I have a lot to be grateful for every single day – but lately, I have found myself feeling positively floored by how much goodness surrounds me.
I’ve always been someone whose attitude is affected by the weather, so it’s no surprise to me that this feeling of gratitude coincides with the onset of spring.
It’s almost as if seeing the flowers bloom produces a similar feeling in my heart; it’s this opening and spreading of beauty.
I am grateful to experience, first-hand, the change and development of downtown Buffalo.
I am grateful to have busted my ass to get my MBA.
I’m grateful for my inner desire to bust my ass to get whatever it is that I want.
I’m grateful for a job that lets me do what I love and continue to grow.
I’m grateful for the close relationships I have maintained with old friends, and am continuing to build with new ones.
I am grateful to have a boyfriend that showers me with compliments and tickles.
I am grateful that my grandma is still alive and well, and that I make it a priority to speak to her every day.
I’m grateful for parents and a sister who provide me with unconditional amounts of support, love and wisdom.
I am grateful to live in a country where I don’t think twice before speaking my mind, blogging my thoughts and drinking out of the tap.
Most of all, I’m grateful for my ability to recognize my feelings.
I am grateful for my self-awareness – for my ability to notice and define what it is I’m feeling, and my desire to grow by pushing myself to ask why and what?
I am grateful for my confidence to speak these feelings out loud and share them with the world in the hopes of inspiring others to do the same.
Finally, I am grateful for this powerful article that I read just an hour after writing this blog post that spoke to this exact feeling.
“The stumbler doesn’t build her life by being better than others, but by being better than she used to be. Unexpectedly, there are transcendent moments of deep tranquillity… eventually, at moments of rare joy, career ambitions pause, the ego rests, the stumbler looks out at a picnic or dinner or a valley and is overwhelmed by a feeling of limitless gratitude, and an acceptance of the fact that life has treated her much better than she deserves.”
