The Grace and Glory of Gratitude

Typing these words on my computer while listening to Beethoven's 'Razumovsky' String Quartet. All I need to be happy is a laptop with an internet connection and all these simple joys of life come streaming in, like sunshine.

I don't pay much for my broadband connection, opting for the cheapest package available which is 89 ringgit a month for 30 Mbps. This connection is the umblical cord that provides nourishment to my soul. It is the key to all the greatest treasures of humanity through the centuries. Music, art, literature and access to all the best teachers on every subject in the world--everything is available at the click of the mouse.

What I feel is a deep sense of gratitude. With this alone, I could spend a thousand years in a cave, savouring the experience of mankind through the ages. I don't life in a posh neighbour nor have a large house furnished with designer furniture, but I do have a shelter, and sufficient food, and a good internet connection. The pandemic only makes us realize how little we all need to be really happy.

 Let's express gratitude for all the things we already have and not fret over things we don't. If you have a roof over your head and food to fill your stomach everyday, what more do you want?  Perhaps success; the kind of success defined by society: a social standing and being recognized as such and having the means to live life lavishly--the overseas holidays, the fine-dining and the designer clothes.  The good life. But for many, the pandemic has yanked all that away, reducing them to the bare necessities of life. But are you not grateful that, at the very least, you have that?

You are alright, right now. That's a mantra l have learned to tell myself, every time that I'm being anxious over something that is not exactly going my way. Well, at the very least I'm alive and at this moment, healthy. And if I care to really think about it: happy. Happiness is a simple thing. You are at ease and in possession of all your faculties, and being aware that you are, here and now, present and able to express gratitude for it.

Is that a difficult thing to do? If it is not, then it is not difficult to be happy. Happiness is simply gratitude. Gratitude is appreciating all that you have now and being aware that you are doing so. This awareness of the moment, this acknowledgement of the now, this presence of mind, body and soul--this is the divine state of grace and gratitude. 

The true prayer is a prayer of gratitude--of acknowledging one's fragility in the world and having made it so far with so little. It is with the grace of the universe that you live and thrive in this tiny sliver of space and time. When you see and feel that deep down in your soul, then you have been touched by the grace and glory of gratitude.