Missing Silver

Today I am grateful for the connections I have with others in recovery. I am also grateful for a nice evening to watch my son's first baseball game of the season.

Sam's team won in a long, up and down game. It was to be expected early in the season. I appreciated that after falling behind right away, the team kept plugging along and didn't give up.

Keep plugging along and don't give up. That is sound advice in many ways. Gratitude practice allows me to better follow that advice because it energizes me and gives me clarity about priorities and what I should do next.

I came across this saying the other day:

"Too many people miss the silver lining because they are expecting gold." 

(Maurice Setter)

This really resonated with me because it is what so many of us do with gratitude, me included. We miss the many small gifts throughout the day or week, while holding out for a promise to be fulfilled, for the news to be good, for the money to be there, or whatever else we are holding out for. 

Those daily gifts may seem inconsequential, but they really are not. They are the stuff that life is made of. They are promises coming true in our lives. They are always there. For me they include things like: air to breathe, people to love, food to eat. Nothing insignificant about any of those things. We just tend to minimize them because we take them for granted or we want and expect too much of them and of ourselves.

Today I will keep plugging along, noticing the silver linings of life. I encourage you to do the same.