There’s a simple expression I think about a lot which is that “You’re not grateful for anything until you’re without it, or when you lose it.”

I live by that because it’s always been true to me in my own life. I’ve thought about this phrase a lot about during many times in my life that were either happening in the present, but a lot more in terms with the past. Whether it be about a friend, family member, a stranger I could’ve met in the grocery store, in the gym; it can be literally anything. It’s so important to be grateful for positive times in life, and even the negatives. For our discussion today, we’re going to be discussing why being grateful and having perspective is so important and beneficial for our lives. 

After you finish reading this article today, or even if you only manage to get to the end of this sentence, I want you to go tell someone you appreciate “thank you” for doing something for you. It doesn’t matter what it is, small or big, just show them you appreciate them and are grateful. It can make a really big difference.

Having Perspective 

Having Perspective can honestly be a huge game changer. I believe this is factual because it makes you think about what could’ve been in some cases and how fortunate we are. 

The reason why of how I came up with the idea of this article happened a few weeks ago. It was a bright, sunny day in NJ…. Okay, never mind skipping the scenery bit. 

Anyways, I had picked up a friend of mine to hang out and we ended up going to Target. Why? Because Target is amazing, and anyone who says otherwise is wrong. Possibly controversial? But, I hope not, God bless Target, man. Anyways again, back to the main part. 

We were walking around Target after I had made the smart financial decision to buy a HUGE Groot (from Guardians of The Galaxy) Funko Pop (for…only $12). We were making our way to the self-checkout registers and a lady with a baby in her arms came up to us. 

She greet us and then said something alone the lines of “Can you help me pay for this for my baby?” I looked at the baby in her arms and then looked to her cart and saw some baby formula that she wanted to buy for him. 

At this point, I didn’t know what to say or do, and I looked over to my friend and she gave me a look of pure confusion, so I went on to say, “Well, uh, how much is it?” and listen, I might be a greedy little sh*t, but I’m 18-years-old, and don’t have a lot to spare unfortunately, so when she replied “It’s $60,” I didn’t think I could spare that much, so I said, “Oh, I’m sorry I don’t think I can give you that much. I’m really sorry I can’t help.” I said this to her (who looked to be about) nine-year-old daughter who was beside her, and she looked up at me and said “You really can’t help us?” The look on her face really did kill me in my heart. I replied that I couldn’t, apologized again, and walked out of the store with my friend. When I got in the car, I thought about it and felt the guilt, and decided to go back into Target and try to see if I could find the family and give them a $20 bill because I felt like it was the least I could do to try to help. 

Though, when I got back in the store, the family, was, of course, gone. That added to my feeling of regret a lot. And, from this moral dilemma I had at Target made me think a lot about my own life, everyone I knew in my own life, and how lucky we are. 

It’s truly saddening to think that others don’t have enough to feed their families, be able to afford essentials, shelter, and more and seeing it first hand made me think how spoiled I really am, and so many others. We have the opportunity to do so much, be able to get a job, sleep in a bed every night, and so much more, while other may not have the same privilege. 

The point of all this is that you, the reader, you reading this article right now means so much to me, and I’m so grateful for you. The only reason people are able to make and read articles online and do anything like this is with technology which we take for granted so much, and realistically others don’t have that same opportunity that we do. So, I think it’s just so very important that we make an effort to be grateful for every little thing that we’re able to have in our possession. 

Put things into perspective more, and juts knowing that the little things going on could be so much worse. Putting things into perspective isn’t invalidating yourself, anyone else, or whatever is going on as well, it’s really just all a different way of considering life. 

The Little Things with Perspective

As I said before, in life, sometimes, we just have to really put things into perspective. It can be beneficial to just take a second and consider how lucky you are that you even have a certain someone/something who is important in your life, when someone else may not have anyone/anything at all. 

All in all, all these little things are taken for granted, and I think we should all be able to consider how lucky we truly are and also be able give back to the community if we’re in a position to do so. Although, putting things into perspective may not be what our initial thoughts are in a situation, it helps to consider how fortunate we truly are in difficult situations. 

We have all these little things, that to others, can be considered really big luxuries. It’s always beneficial to just take a second to be grateful for them and the people you have around you.

The Good and Bad Days 

Although, we always want to have good days everyday, there’s always going to be those times of our lives that aren’t so great which obviously is apart of life. I like to think there’s always ways of making the negatives into a positive and I think in a certain, unique way, that’s exactly what they’re meant for. If we never had anything bad happen to us, we’d never truly be grateful and happy for all the good things that come around. 

For example our imaginary person, Joe, who struggled to make ends meet for most of his life becomes increasingly wealthy. He is able to have an amazing life without any financial issues after being in poverty for most of his life. From all those horrible, tiring, and unfortunate times, it made Joe be so incredibly thankful for the way his life was now. He now was able to have food on his table every night, a house, a bed to sleep in, a car to drive himself with, and so much more. If he was just born into all this, that’d be great too, but it wouldn’t make him realize how fortunate he was without all the bad days he underwent to get to that point, the process that got him to that point. 

The big point here is that the bad days make the good days even better. A rainy day sucks, but when it turns sunny, we’re so much more happy after undergoing the rainfall. Without bad days, there aren’t any good ones.

Don’t always consider the bad days to be bad, just consider them to be days to value enough so that the you can look back during the good days are that much better. Without bad days, there are no good days because then everything would just be the exact same, and there would be no meaning to anything. 

How Can Being Grateful Help In Life?

In summary, staying Grateful helps us be happier and more disciplined all in all. Here’s a few different ways being grateful can help in our day to day life from a study done by students at Harvard University: 

• Helps us feel more positive emotions 
• Helps relish good experiences and truly value them
• Improves health 
• Assists in dealing with adversity 
• Able to build strong relationships 

From these few examples, it exemplifies how simply being more appreciative of people and little things in our lives can really make us live a better life. The person who’s grateful to get out of bed every morning is happier than the person who wakes up and doesn’t think much of it. Being grateful as stated above gives us more positive emotion and feelings. Try it sometime, it really could make you feel better and be able to enjoy your life more. 

Appreciation is rarely ever not appreciated by others. 

Source(s): Harvard Med School Study

This article was originally published on Brandon’s Substack.