If you are able to read this article, then this is one of the things you should be grateful for, because globally, about 41% of the population does not have access to the internet. (According to Statista.com)
Sometimes we get so caught up in chasing after the things that we want; we often forget to be grateful for the things we have right now. To help you practice gratitude daily for a better life, here are 15 things you should be grateful for.
15 Things You Should Be Grateful For
1. Life
Life, even if you don’t agree, is the biggest gift of all time. You were allowed to open your eyes in this world. However, not everyone is fortunate enough to live.
Miscarriages and infanticide rob the opportunity of being able to be born into this world. Diseases, natural calamities, lack of resources kill more people than you could ever think of. This is one of the most important things to be grateful for, for a lot of people are denied the fundamental right even to live.
2. Parents
Your parents are the people who decided to bring you into this world. From basics like the good house, right food, and proper education to the latest smartphone in the market, they did and are still doing everything they can to keep you happy and safe.
A lot of children are born alone into this world, as orphans, with no relatives from their family willing to take care of them. They are forced to face hardship at a very young age as they grow up in an orphanage, wondering about their actual heritage.
Even if you don’t like your parents, they are one of the most important things to be grateful for.
3. Friends
They are your chosen family. With a million inside jokes, countless times where you laughed so hard you couldn’t breathe, these people did make your life worth living.
How dull would be a life without friends? The people who are nothing but supportive of your decisions, the people who keep you on the right path, the people who make you laugh, the people whose shoulder you lean into whenever you cry, the people who are ready to leave everything for you whenever you ask for their help.
We often forget to be grateful for their existence. Take some time out of your life, remind them that you love them, and you cherish your friendship, and they are one of the things you should be grateful for, and you indeed are.
4. Enemies
Your enemies are the people who dislike you, despise you for your past behavior, your possessions, or simply because they don’t like you for who you are.
It’s absurd to be grateful for enemies, but here’s a good reason why: our enemies often dislike us because of a specific wrong habit or a certain lousy deed. We can correct ourselves and be a better version of ourselves, thanks to the criticism we receive from our enemies.
As weird as it sounds, enemies are one of the things you should be grateful for in your life, for they motivate you to work hard and improve upon yourself.
5. Health
Most of us can get enough sleep, good food, and means of exercising to keep us fit. Getting sick once in a while is common and happens to the majority of us.
A healthy body and a healthy mind are often taken for granted. A lot of people struggle with chronic health issues like diabetes and cancer. A lot of people fight with their own self every day because of their mental health.
A healthy life, the ability to interact with everything around you, to experience, to feel, to be able to love, are some of the small yet important things to be grateful for.
6. Drinkable Water
On average, we drink about 3 liters of water a day. It is a resource that we take for granted and use mindlessly. It is an essential resource, making it one of the important things to be grateful for.
You probably have a water purifier, or the means to boil water to make it potable. According to water.org, 780 million people do not have access to clean, potable water.
7. Problems
We often despise the problems that we face in our lives, but these are the things you should be grateful for. They force us to grow by throwing hardships at us.
The transition from a carefree child to a responsible adult is possible only because of the obstacles we’ve faced throughout our life. With each problem we learned a life lesson, it doesn’t matter if the experience was big or small, what matters is that you survived it, you solved your problems, and you grew.
8. Sensory Organs
A majority of us were blessed with the ability to see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. These are the things you should be grateful for. However, these are the very things being taken for granted.
Many people spend their lives not knowing what the world looks like. Many people cannot hear the sweet chirping of the birds. You are blessed with a whole functional body, and you should take care of it and be grateful for it.
9. Pain
No one likes pain. Rather, no one likes to be in pain, be it physical or emotional pain. But it is absurdly enough one of the most important things to be grateful for in our life.
Physical pain stems from carelessness, be it hurting your back or getting a stomach ache. It’s a learning experience, albeit a painful one. You’ll probably be more careful while walking and you’ll reduce the amount of junk food that you eat so that you won’t have to go through the same kind of pain again.
Emotional pain, however, lasts for much longer and, in return, teaches us multiple essential life lessons. Emotional pain is hard to cope with, but it prepares us if a similar situation was to occur in the future.
10. Happiness
There are so many things you should be grateful for in life. There’s happiness in star-gazing, baking a cake, finishing an assignment a week ahead of its deadline; you name it. It’s a warm feeling of pure joy.
The sad reality, however, is that as you grow old, you have more responsibilities and more things to do, and you often end up having no time to enjoy life’s purest pleasure. So the feeling of happiness is indeed an important thing to be grateful for.
11. Teachers
If you’re able to read this article right now, you should be thankful to your teachers. They are the ones who meticulously spent their time and energy on you so that you could be a decent, educated human being and do good to the society.
Teachers have taught us everything from complex calculus to the most basic of all life lessons. The vast majority of the knowledge that you currently possess is because of your teachers. They are one of the most important things you should be grateful for in your life.
12. Books
Books are soul food. They are so full of knowledge and wisdom passed down to us by our elders. Reading books develop our brain to face the technicalities of life.
There’s fiction, which helps you to escape reality. Then there are biographies and autobiographies to help you know more about the great people who have influenced the world in one way or the other. Books are a source of comfort for many people, including me, and that is why they are one of the things you should be grateful for.
13. Music
We often commute to our school, college, or place of work with earphones in our ear jamming to our favorite songs. Now imagine a day without music. How painful was that imagination?
It is such a simple thing that we take for granted. All the effort put in by the artists, the composers, and the musician to give you a masterpiece in the form of a song are one of the things you should be grateful for in your life.
14. Love
The feeling of love is exquisite. Humans are a social animals, and we thrive on the fact that we can feel things. The love that you receive from your parents, your friends, your soulmate, the cute stray dog on the street who you feed daily; these are such important things you should be grateful for.
We often take for granted the love of our near and dear ones, and we only realize their true worth once they’ve left us. Hence, you should cherish them and love them and let them know that they are important.
15. Heartbreaks
Heartbreaks are tough to cope up with. The feeling of being hurt by your near, and dear ones cannot be explained in mere words. But they are indeed one of the things you should be grateful for.
Heartbreaks aren’t easy; they’re painful and tough to deal with, but you survive, you persevere. You manage to pull yourself together and heal yourself every single time. That requires a lot of strength and courage. And you only keep on getting stronger and stronger and evolve into a better person than you were before. And this is why heartbreaks are one of the things to be grateful for in your life.
There are so many different things all around you that you take for granted. Practicing gratitude has astounding health benefits. Getting into the habit of maintaining a gratitude journal and writing one thing that you were grateful for that day is a very healthy habit that each one of us must develop.
Over to you!
Does practicing gratitude help you in your daily life in any way? Let me know all about it in the comments!
Last Updated on by Icy Tales Team
