Voices of Gratitude

I find myself extremely grateful today. I was feeling a little (a lot) bent out of shape about the money that I'm about to fork out to fix my car. My old, broken down, piece of shit car. My ragged, worn out car that has me spending about $700 every couple of months to fix it these days. However, on the ride home, I started thinking about how much complaining sucks. It really does. We all do it. But come on, when someone starts bitching about something, you know you don't REAALLLYY care about what they're saying. You just nod and say "yea, I feel ya." "No more complaining for me," I thought. I am blessed to have a car to drive. This first thought was the opener for all of the things that I realized I should be thankful for. I am extremely blessed to work in a low income area with many, many wonderful and optimistic co-workers and kids. Many of them live in undesirable circumstances, and many have only one car per household. (Here I am whining about MY car that can be easily repaired). Although living environments are far from the way most of my family and friends live, the people there seem to be much happier than most people I know. They bring a desired and much welcomed warmth to school; not sometimes, not here and there, but always. How I wish that I could be that perky and happy to be at school every day. I admire my kids more than anything. One of my students did not have running water at one point this year, and had to bathe in the neighbor's water hose. He is in 2nd grade. He should definitely not have to be subject to such. However, even though his life is hard at times (much harder than anything we usually, or, will ever have to deal with) he comes to school every day with a huge smile on his face and a peace in his heart. He and many others at the school spread their love and contentment so that the entire school is saturated with gratitude...gratitude for what we have, for what we are, and for what we can be. Thus, my lesson for the day, to which I will have to constantly revisit in hopes to instill my own sanity and understanding, is gratitude. Always remember to have gratitude.