In fact, I'm grateful to have the opportunity to fix my said peripatetic ways. Which is the purpose of this little post, I suppose. To express my gratitude.
My mom, as many of my friends know, had a stroke in 2010. Not entirely debilitating, it nevertheless deprived her of her prized independence, forcing her to rely on help and considering moving from her home in Puerto Rico into an assisted living residence.
Last week, she interviewed at such a residence. In two days, we got the response; not eligible at this time. My dad took that news kind of hard, but my mom took it with grace and aplomb. She told me, "Things happen for a reason. We always have to be grateful, even when bad things happen, because we don't know what it ultimately leads to."
How often are we actually grateful? How often do we actually just go about our activities, all the while complaining to ourselves, in our minds, about life's injustices? Able-bodied, well-off, and complaining. This can describe a lot of people, I think. My best friend, who works on Wall Street, talks about co-workers who pull in huge salaries complaining that it's never enough. That they've been rooked. That they deserve more.
Perception is a funny thing. Here are people with everything, acting poor. My mom, not wealthy, not hale, acting as if she's rich. Well, at least acting content. I find a lot of inspiration in that.
Cicero said that gratitude isn't only the greatest of all virtues, but is the parent of all others. I think that's very profound. Do you?
Gratitude and humility kind of go together. Nobody did it all themselves. Then there's the tendency to take credit for every seeming good and blame others for every seeming bad.
ReplyDeleteAs far as your friend's co-workers: if you are greedy you will never have enough.