If you had to write down three things you were grateful for prior to going to bed one night and they were going to be the only things left behind in your life the next day upon waking, what would they be?
I already try to maintain the best attitude of gratitude every single day by writing down at least ten things I’m grateful for before hitting the hay. But the idea of only having three of them remaining in my life the next day upon waking is hard to fathom. Although this exercise is purely hypothetical in nature, it does force me to put some serious thought as to what’s most important to me in life at the present time.
The first one comes easy to me because it’s the only thing that has saved me from a total life of despair and addictions. It’s also the only thing that has kept me going on any of the days I’ve been down for the count. And even more importantly, it’s the only thing that continues to lift me up when I most need it. If you haven’t guessed what it is already, what I’m most grateful for in my life is the growing spiritual connection I have with my Higher Power. Without that there’s a good chance, actually a great chance really, I’d relapse back into my addiction-prone life and to me that would be the death of my soul and eventually my life altogether.
The second one is somewhat harder for me to write down because on some level it feels a little selfish to me. But without this, I honestly believe I wouldn’t be able to fulfill my life’s spiritual goal as well, which is to be a strong beacon of peace, love, light, and joy for the entire world to benefit from. It’s also something I fully think is critical to maintaining that growing spiritual connection to my Higher Power I just mentioned in my first piece of gratitude. What I’m actually referring to is a healthy life. I’m so grateful for the health and healing processes I’ve been going through and for the healthy life I’m finally coming into. While I know I can still do my Higher Power’s work whether I’m healthy or not, it’s sincerely that important to me today to be healthy in my mind, body, and soul.
This brings me to the third and final thing I’m grateful for, at least in regards to this spiritual exercise. I find this one to be the hardest of all for me to write down because there are so many other things I’m just as grateful for and cherish in life. But writing this one down essentially eliminates each of the others I find to be just as important and even though all this is a purely speculative exercise, I found it nevertheless quite difficult to do. What this last thing is that I’m extremely grateful for is my partner Chris. Although we have our differences at times like most relationships probably have, I truly treasure our friendship, our bond, and our growing love for each other and to not have that seems unfathomable in my life. Sadly though, writing it down as my last piece of gratitude does leave my sister, her family, my spiritual teacher, and several of my closest friends off this conjectural exercise. While each also do mean the world to me, there is a distance factor that prevents me from feeling as close to them on a daily basis like I would want to have. Regardless, I do love each of them dearly even if they didn’t make my top three.
So I can honestly say I hope that this exercise will never come to fruition though because I can’t imagine my life without many other things that didn’t make my list. Neither do I want to think about what it would be like if the exercise had only allowed for one and one thing alone to be grateful for and left behind in my life the next day. But time and time again I have to say that my number one answer for what I will always be most grateful for in my life is my Higher Power, because without that I am nothing, but with that, I am everything I need to be…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson