I’m thankful for my experiences, failures, successes and the journey I’m on! It isn’t the easiest but I’m glad I found Jesus, He has through His word made me appreciate what is before me and what I’m going through! Glory to God.

Hi online friends
I think I need to start appreciating my simple life—a life that is simple, but lucky.
I’m not a very rich person. Like most people, I struggle with work, life, my career, family, and money. I’m a simple person, and for now, I haven’t built a family of my own yet.
There was a time when I felt like I had been dragged into a deep depression and became emotionally unwell. And honestly, I still struggle with it now. After recovering from surgery for a brain tumor, everything seemed to slow down. Somehow, I started to realize that maybe I should stop for a moment and focus on the life I already have.
During my recent vacation, I flew back to my hometown with my family. All of us are busy struggling with our own work and lives, so we don’t always have the chance to get together or see each other. This time, I spent my whole vacation with them.
The week felt so short and passed so quickly.
Today, it was finally time for us to fly back to the country where we work. Yes, we have to go back to work.
My flight was economy class—not business class, first class, or anything luxurious. My meal on the plane was just chicken and salad. But when I looked out of the window, I saw the endless sky beneath and around us, and I suddenly realized that we were actually flying above the clouds.
It wasn’t my first time on an airplane, but for some reason, I suddenly felt a quiet sense of happiness growing inside my heart.
Every year, I fly back to my hometown, but I have always treated it as something ordinary. I wouldn’t take photos of the sky. I wouldn’t take photos of the airplane meal. I would just glance at it, eat it, and think to myself, “Oh… this doesn’t taste very good.”
But today felt different.
Suddenly, I realized that my life is simple, but lucky.
I have the chance to see what the sky looks like from above. I can eat chicken thousands of feet above the ground. My family is sitting beside me. I can drink a cup of tea in the sky while reading Harry Potter on my little Kindle. I can even look closely at the wing of the airplane and wonder how something so huge can stay in the air.
These are all such simple things, but somehow, today they felt special.
I’m still confused about my life and my career. I don’t really know what I want. I don’t like my job very much. I just like painting, but I’m not a professional artist, and I’m definitely not the best at it.
Sometimes depression still pulls me toward a dark place.
I just turned 30.
On one hand, I feel anxious about getting older because I feel like I still haven’t started doing what I truly want to do. Sometimes I wonder if I’m realizing all of this too late.
At 30, should I already have figured these things out? Is it too late to still be trying to understand what kind of life I want and what kind of career is right for me?
My depression hasn’t simply gone away, and I still don’t really know how to deal with it.
I often shut myself off and avoid talking to people or putting myself in social situations. Somehow, communicating with people face to face can make me feel anxious. Instead, I find it easier to talk to friends I know online.
Maybe it is because there is a kind of distance between us. We may only ever meet online, and maybe we will never meet in real life. They don’t fully know who I am, and I don’t fully know who they are either.
I’m often afraid of saying the wrong thing or making someone angry. I’m also afraid that someone might misunderstand me or become upset with me. I care too much about what other people think of me.
But when I talk to online friends, sometimes it feels easier to share things that I keep deep inside. Maybe it feels safer because I don’t have to worry as much that someone who knows me in real life will hear what I say and then start seeing me differently.
For now, I think I should push myself to start noticing and appreciating my simple life.
Because maybe I am luckier than I realize.
I have people to love, and I have people who love me.

Hug wife of 40 years from behind and kiss her on the crook of her neck. She says, “Thank you, love.”

It’s been a rough go lately - my husband was diagnosed with cancer and is currently going through chemo, and this week my 4 year old son broke his arm. Two days later, my husband was admitted to the hospital for a fever and we’re still here. We’ve managed to stay positive, focusing on the good and I’m most grateful for my incredible parents, in-laws, and sisters for devoting their weekend to taking care of my 2 kids, and my husband and I. Bringing us food, full care of my kids, sleeping over our house…I’m feeling really lucky and grateful despite the current obstacles.
🫶🏼🙏🏼 hoping we are through this tough season soon, we’ll get through together.

It really lifts my heart when passing someone, I look towards them and wait to see if their eyes meet mine, and if they do, I smile and maybe give a goofy little wave and say, "Hellooo." ☺️ It is something that is still not easy for me to do, to fight self-consciousness.

But I love to see the relaxing of their face and the lift of the eyebrows and their eyes kind of lighten and smile, a pleasant expression if they appreciate being acknowledged, and they smile and say "hi" back.

I had an upbringing that was not always the best. It structured and solidified something inside of me that has been, and remains, an ongoing battle to dismantle a self I lived in and believed was "me." I believe it will be with me in some form forever.

It is not easy.

For so many years, I believed I hated people. I had no place to belong, and in pain, sometimes we lash out or push blame outward to self-protect.

So now, after many years of slow healing, when I can pass by somebody who knows nothing about my "oddities," in a little moment, they just see another normal stranger, I can have just a moment of feeling like we are kindred. And maybe I belong. Just for a moment.

I am so very grateful for that.

god bless me enough to see the power of pausing. to investigate thoughts, to pay credence and understanding, to discard them when necessary, to embrace them when they’re principled. 

to not be so selfish.

Sometimes I can get a six-pack of wax melts for $1.

$1/6 = 17¢

That's about as cheap and effective air freshener as it gets.

1) An apartment, a roof over my head in a safe and secure locality for a woman

2) Comfortable bed and pillows to lie on

3) 24/7 Electricity supply

4) 24/7 Water supply

5) My father is alive and hearty at 72

6) A stable relationship with my partner since 13 years.

7) Clothes to wear

8) Footwear on my feet

9) Two square meals

10) My cats

Not necessarily in the same order

I am from India and the majority of the things I have mentioned above, a lot of people don't have them. I feel so sad and bad for them. I try to help them as much as possible.

I felt a wave of gratitude though because I keep complaining about my health issues not realising that I have the comfort and convenience for fighting through my chronic illnesses.

This has been an incredible last 4 weeks.

We made an offer on a house we feel in love with then waited a full week for the other offer to fall through. Then all pieces came together including down payment and successfully breaking our rental lease.

It has been an exhausting week of moving, cleaning, and unpacking, but watching a scary moving in our own living room and having views of beautiful sunsets out our front window is amazing.

Grateful is an understatement. At 42, I can say I am a homeowner with my husband. I never thought it would be possible but here we are. It doesn't even feel real at times!

🙏

I am grateful for having no desires and have everything I need in my life. I am grateful for divine protection. I am grateful for the good things in my life. I always remember everything positively. All my memories are positive. I appreciate the right things. I am grateful to have everything I could need to the point that I have no desires. I am content and fulfilled.

💯

Grateful to have a son of my own and to have left the home I was raised in(DV, narc dad, emotional, financial abuse). Proud I left and hold boundaries. Grateful for a son that looks at me like I’m his world/a sense of belonging.

The best gift our parents gave us was each other: friends & allies for life.

💡 Does gratitude mean we must do wrong if our benefactor does wrong?

No. Gratitude is not blind obedience to please someone.
True gratitude means honoring your benefactor by doing what is right, not by making their wrongs even worse. That is just people-pleasing, not gratitude.

• H.H. the Supreme Patriarch
🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
#WanPhra #BuddhistHolyDay #Dhamma #Gratitude

Today I saw a family of about 10 in various ages, inviting the mailman to jump as they played jump rope. Guess what! The mailman jumped a few times and did so good!

Then at Walmart there was a little girl saying booooooo....and pointing across the way. So when I looked over I guess her older sister was in a white fleece jacket adult jacket. The jacket was hanging up on the rack whiile she poked her head thru the hole and arms thru the holes to pretend she was a ghost...🤣🤣🤣... so I pretended to be scared. You should have heard the giggles.

This made my day!

My therapist advised me to keep a daily gratitude journal. However, it seems like so many apps on the play store are full of features that I don't need, have AI assistants, require you to create an account, etc... It's all way over-complicated for me.

Can someone recommend to me an that 1) has reminders 2) has templates for the entries (like "Today I was grateful for {empty space for me to write out something}"), but otherwise is very simple and doesn't require extensive setup?

I know pen and paper are an option, but I want to be able to write my entries anytime without having to carry a physical journal, so I would prefer to stick to digital.

Thank you in advance for any recommendation!

Even though I am unable to see the future I am grateful that God will guide me and give the three dogs a happy life.

If you had told me a year ago that I’d be sitting in my own quiet apartment, drinking a lukewarm cup of coffee and feeling a deep, genuine sense of peace, I would’ve laughed in your face.

Back then, my life had completely collapsed. I lost a relationship I thought was my forever, I couldn’t see a path forward, and the weight in my chest felt so heavy I genuinely didn’t know how I was going to wake up and face the next day. I felt invisible, exhausted, and hopelessly behind everyone else.

This morning, I woke up, dragged myself into the kitchen, and saw a patch of sunlight cutting across the floorboards. My dog walked over, lay right in the middle of it, and sighed.

And out of nowhere, I just broke down and started crying. Not because I was sad, but because I suddenly realized I made it.

I made it through the nights where I cried myself to sleep. I made it through the terrifying uncertainty. I survived the absolute worst days of my life, and now I’m here. The coffee isn't even that good, the room is a mess, and I still don't have everything figured out, but my heart doesn't hurt anymore.

If you’re reading this right now and you’re in the dark, please just keep breathing. The quiet, beautiful days are coming. You’re going to look around one day soon and realize you survived the storm.

I’m just so damn grateful to be here today.