Celebrate Humanity
I grow up in a countryside, we had five red date trees in the yard, in the spring they would cover healthy green little leaves and in the autumn, each tree would produce a lot of red delicious dates. You know these red dates work wonders with depression, relaxing us, helping us with digestion and boosting our immune system.
When it’s winter and it had snowed heavily, I stood before the window, looked at the trees and thought: you must be cold, not a single leaf to protect you, but covered with thick snow. I felt I was so lucky for I had a house to protect me from all severe weather.
Early Memories
In my early memories we had a donkey. When it is summer there were lots of flies because we lived close to animals and fields.
I used to stand next to my donkey and watched the flies landing on him, like gadflies. They gave painful bites. My donkey swung his tail this way and that way, swiftly trying to brush the flies away from him and even better slapping them to death.
But some flies didn’t move an inch because they had safely landed on the donkey’s back where his tail could not reach. So my poor donkey tried and tried without success.
As I stood there, I was thinking, how lucky I was, my body built so flexible and my legs carried me wherever I wanted to go. I certainly wouldn’t stand there helplessly let a gadfly bite me. I could get a drink, if I was thirsty, get something to eat if I was hungry.
Looking back at my donkey, I thought if we had had a bad day and forgotten all about the donkey, he would stay thirsty and hungry, despite the hateful gadflies. I helped the donkey to chase the flies away and we formed a close relationship, so he never kicked me. But once he did knock me to one side with his bum and he thought it was funny I think, so he kept doing that whenever I was near his backside.
Wonderful Nature
I watched a nature show a while back ; a flock of birds were flying and a calm voice explains what the birds’ purpose and they were flying a long distance to a place to get some water. Possibly David Attenborough.
On the way, some birds were too tired to carry on flying and fell to the hard ground. When the rest had reached the waterside, crocodiles were waiting there, hungry.
The crocodiles covered the water where these birds were supposed to be landing for their water.
The programme also showed emperor penguins. As soon as the female laid the egg, she would dash away search for food for the unborn baby and the male penguin would sit on the egg for more than two month without eating. The journey for food was such a challenge, water crush onto the hard rock, some penguins crushed and some penguins eaten by seal or any other severe creatures and so on. So some never made it back to the new born baby, the male penguin though hadn’t been eating for more than two month but pulled out stored food within his stomach and fed the baby. The rest of the penguins would continue taking turns risked their lives searching for food for their baby.
Humans are powerful
Some people say, we’re only human, the truth is we are the magnificent, intelligent, powerful humans!
We have everything we need. If you think about it, our basic needs are quite simple. All we need is food, water, some clothes and a house. But our want, our desires are big. There’s nothing wrong with that, but shouldn’t we first feel grateful for what we already have?
I think it’s Jim Ron says that, all nature taking place on earth uses their full power, full strength for survival. Only humans have been given the dignity to choose. And only humans don’t apply themselves to the masses.
Saying so much, my purpose is to encouraging people to feel lucky for being a human, feel grateful for what we have, what we can do. By feeling grateful, research shows, it can improve our mental and physical health, we will feel less chronic pain, reduces depression, boosts self-esteem, increases resilience, energy and happiness.
‘The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.’
-Oprah Winfrey
You may ask is it true? How? Why?
Gratitude can rewire our brain, produce both dopamine—which sends signals to our nervous system in our brain—and serotonin, which is involved in sleep, depression and memory. Like antidepressants, these are ‘feel-good’ neurotransmitters; creating happiness and contentment.
So, if you want to feel grateful of what you already have, I suggest that you keep a gratitude journal, write in it every day. I joined Bob Proctor’s Personal Growth Programme, he highly encourages us to do so, he said first thing in the morning write ten things you are grateful for, then meditate on it. In our study group, we all do this and we see miraculous things happen in our life.