martha_chapa95 via Flickr
It’s Thanksgiving, what are you thankful for?
Living with chronic illnesses can make it very difficult to find your gratitude sometimes, and we all struggle with that on a regular basis. One of the things you learn eventually is that there is always something to be grateful for . . .
- Do you have a roof over your head? Many don’t. They sleep on cold concrete or piles of trash.
- Do you get to eat every day? Even if you’re eating peanut butter out of a jar because you can’t afford a loaf of bread, it’s more than some people have.
- Do you take medications for your symptoms? There are thousands of people in this country who have no access to healthcare of any kind.
- Does someone in your family have an income? There are 4 unemployed people for every job opening, and disability can take years to be approved, IF it is approved at all.
- Are you able to get out of bed without help? There are those that can’t, and haven’t been able to for years.
- Do you have even one sympathetic friend or family member? Some live with constant recrimination from everyone in their life because they’re sick; and others don’t have anyone at all, supportive or critical.
Do you see where I’m going here? We all have good things in our lives that we can be grateful for. Even someone who is homeless and living on the street can be grateful that it’s not raining, that the temperature is comfortable or that someone gave them something to eat. Unless we’re dying in agony, there’s always someone who has it worse than we do.
More posts on gratitude:
ChronicBabe Blog Carnival #38: Gettin’ Our Gratitude On
If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It
Where is Your Attention Focused?: Positive Thinking for the Chronically Ill
| If you’ve found the content on this website helpful, and you can afford to, please consider making a contribution to help keep the content coming and the site online. |
[...] negative things you flushed down the toilet is to remind you that you can forget about those things.I know the only problem that i had a very low self esteem is because I tend to compare myself to oth…ens to me too. I compare myself to my friends all the time and I get jealous of their abilities. You [...]