A whole year goes by and it still takes one particular holiday to make us slow down and reminisce about all the blessings we have in our lives. All around the world there are holidays meant to celebrate the humble human experience. In America, the closest holiday I can think of that expresses how grateful we are to be alive is Thanksgiving Day.
On our quests to become perfectly healthy specimens, we forget about the small daily appreciations that we should be telling ourselves each day. There’s nobody alive on this planet that should not have some sort of thing to be thankful for on a daily basis. I wanted to share some of the things I’m thankful for in 2015.
My Country
I don’t care what your political party affiliation is if you live in the United States. You can be a Democrat, Republican or Independent but at the end of the day you’re still an American. It’s amazing how we love to use one particular word to separate and divide our country, when at the end of the day we all are Americans. We have so many freedoms in this country that it’s hard to grasp just how good we have it until we go overseas and experience the lifestyle of other cultures.
I’m not going to get too political on this blog, because it’s not the place for it. But I do ask that you at least pay attention to what’s going on in the world. There are countries:
• At war
• Living in constant terror
• With no electricity
• With no drinking water
• With daily genocides
• Constantly having bombs dropped on them
• etc.
All that is happening every minute of every day throughout this planet. Meanwhile, I’m in a country where more people know about Patti LaBelle’s pies at Walmart going viral than the reality of what’s been going on in Syria. Heck, there’s a former reality TV star running for PRESIDENT! How crazy is that!
We Americans can act and behave as stupidly as we want because of the protection we feel inside our own country. That’s something to truly to be thankful for. Other countries do not allow their people to voice their opinions, yet here we got so many choices. For better or worse, being an American is truly something I’m thankful for.
Grocery stores
The simple task of going to the grocery store to buy groceries for Thanksgiving is a blessing. The fact that I have an abundant supply of food staples within a 3-mile radius of my house is just mind blowing! We have a system set up that keeps an eye on all the foods we consume is something to be thankful for. No longer are we playing Russian roulette with what goes in our mouths. There is the FDA that ensures our food is not a health risk. (NOTE: The FDA is another debate for another day….BUT the fact that we can argue it’s choices proves we have something to be thankful for!)
Most countries don’t have food regulations as vast as the USA. Simply having a choice when we go to the grocery store is a blessing in itself. Really think about that next time you complain about your diet. You have a choice between the organic, gluten-free cupcakes or triple washed, locally grown baby spinach in a microwavable bag. Could you serious look in the eyes of a starving kid in Africa and not feel ridiculous?
That choice at your grocery store is something to truly be thankful for. The fact that you can lose or gain weight and still have such a variety of foods to eat is something to give thanks for this Thanksgiving. Take time and let that one really sink into your mind!
My Health
I’m fortunate enough to have a very healthy lifestyle. For the entire 2015, I had not had one major accident health wise. This is the one of the few years in which my knees have been healthy the entire year. My chondromalacia patella did not flare up once this year. That is truly something to be thankful for because I know how in my past there had been months in which I had been in consistent pain.
Despite my only weekly workout routines, I have no severe injuries to report. I’ve been blessed with only one lower back pain flare up this year, which disappeared after two weeks. I was still able to work around the injury. That’s a blessing!
All of my routine doctor appointments have come up with positive results. I have not been majorly sick this entire year. There has been no flu, no colds; just minor sniffles here and there. This is definitely a blessed year for my health.
My Career Change
I am truly thankful for the new direction my life has taken. I’m in a unique situation in which I can control my destiny. I decided to take the plunge from the corporate 9 to 5, to pursue something I’m truly passionate about. That passion has led to this website being built. That passion has led to me coming up with the idea to create a book. That book idea turned into Release The Beast.
The book Release The Beast turned into Michael V Moore becoming known as a bestselling author. Not just a bestselling author but also a #1 bestseller author! A year ago I would have never imagined myself as an author. All of these paths are due to one career decision that has led to you actually looking at this blog post right now. It’s amazing how one small leap of faith has this ripple effect on my life as well as other people’s lives.
So as this Thanksgiving comes by I really want you to take a step back and get outside your own skin. Actually observe your environment and think about your reality. Give thanks for all the life blessings that you take for granted. There’s so much in this world that we take for granted. Do yourself a favor and just give thanks this Thanksgiving.
It can be one minute of silence. It can be five minutes of silence. Just make sure you treat the reason you are alive right now as a reason to feel thankful. You’re fortunate enough to have been able to open up your eyes on this day. There are others who never got the opportunity to open their eyes this morning when they expected to wake up. They will never have that opportunity to take that final breath with their loved ones by their sides. They will never see another sunset rise up again. When was the last time you actually looked at the sunset? Use that as your launch pad for something to be thankful for on this upcoming holiday.
Take care!
