There is an expression in English about counting your blessings. There is merit in that statement. People often tend to focus on what is going wrong in their lives, rather than dwelling on what’s going well. It is true that we can learn very helpful lessons from things that happen which we would describe as mistakes. And learning such lessons allows us to develop our skills, our compassion and the ability to see things from an alternative point of view. However, sometimes I think that we forget the great lessons in our lives that fill us with joy.
Simply the act of shining a light on those good feelings encourages them to grow and infuse the rest of our life, or at least the rest of our day.
Why not celebrate and develop the things we do well? We can’t be good at everything, and while it’s not a bad idea to challenge ourselves and look for new areas in which we can learn, we can also hone the skills we have been blessed with. After all, they then become gifts with which we can improve other people’s lives in some way.
When we feel like we are a very good fit with what we are doing—whether that is in our job, our relationship or any other aspect of life—we don’t need to spend so much time looking around the next corner for happiness because we feel it in our contentment and our relaxed confidence. When we get back to the simplicity of doing something well, we are lucky enough to remind ourselves of the essence of life.
Modern life is making us negativist in our attitudes. We seem to find it much easier to believe in the negative side of things and we have no confidence in the good things. But to change life in the positive sense, let’s start with believing that happiness, joy, peace—all the great things—can happen with us first.
So, we might wake up in the morning and think for a few moments about the loving people in our lives, that we have a roof over our heads, a cup of tea first thing and the ingredients in our cupboards for a good breakfast. We then think about the things we are grateful for that we don’t have today: illness, for example, if we are in good health, blindness, if we can see, homelessness, if we have a home.
This kind of thinking not only helps to bring our happiness to the surface, but also to tune in our awareness. As we train our minds to consider the things in our lives that make us want to say ‘thank you’, we begin to notice more of them and take fewer things for granted.
The other benefit is that by practising this kind of thinking we also help to develop our compassion for others; we are able to acknowledge suffering and have the strength to look directly at it, so that we may also have the motivation to help those in need.
Don’t be afraid that appreciation for what is present in your life right now will somehow stop you from striving or being ambitious. To be content and appreciative is not to be confused with being complacent. If you can hold gratitude in your heart and mind, you can begin to live in the present, rather than wishing for the good old days of the past or putting off happiness as something you will only allow yourself as a reward for some outstanding goal or desire.
You continue to create goals and to strive, but you also allow yourself to recognise the positive things in your life right now, today.
The more you work on your strengths, the bigger contribution that you will make to the world and to all the people around you. By turning your mind around in this way, you give nourishment to those good things—your loving relationships, for example—and they begin to bloom in even more beautiful ways.
Even those who are a little more on the pessimistic than optimistic side of the scales can begin to see what’s right in front of them with appreciation, rather than spending so many of their thoughts on worrying about things in the future.
Likewise, if you are someone who is very optimistic, but always running towards the next project, or if you can’t wait for the next turning along your path, you can use this sense of appreciating your life right now to bring you back into the present moment, so you can enjoy today as much as the thought of tomorrow.
The author is the spiritual head of the 1,000-year-old Drukpa Order based in the Himalayas