Gratitude and the Art of Happiness by Shanaya

I want to start by wishing everyone here a year filled with happiness, success, good health and gratitude.

I spent Dec 31st with a small group of close friends, like everyone out there who is not in the same city as their family. As we approached midnight, a couple of my friends started saying, “Good riddance to this year; it’s been so hard.” After this statement was repeated for the fourth time, I could not contain myself. I said, “Good riddance to this year; it’s been so hard? All we need to do is take one good look around, we are surrounded by people who love us, have good food on our table, a family that truly loves us, health and security that so many lack today.”

To make them realise the year was not all that bad I asked each of them to state five to ten things that they were grateful for in 2020. Reluctant at first, they started listing these things, and we saw a remarkable shift in energy. I felt like I was having a first-hand experience of the beauty of gratitude and spreading positivity. I saw how our thoughts and actions create an “energy vortex” that draws in the necessary ingredients for our life.

I completely agree with the sentiment that 2020 has been very difficult for most of us. Everyone had to part with something very dear to them, be it a job, mental health, a loved one to the pandemic, or all of the above. For one, I moved to New York City with the hopes and dreams and a massive checklist of things I wanted to explore and discover. Not even a month after I moved, the world was under lockdown; I lost my job, my self-confidence… (honestly, the list can go on) and I was on the verge of a terrible mental breakdown.

But as I write this post today, I don’t want to point out all the terrible things that happened to us this year, instead how this year helped us turn inward. I go to bed a little bit stronger and happier when I read a kindness post by one of you or read one of your articles here. I have realised that belief alone results in the self-empowering attitude that sets the stage for recovery.

Here are a few of the million things that I am grateful for this year:

I did lose my job, but that gave me the opportunity to add a new member to our family, my dog
I am grateful to have friends and family that genuinely stood by me through my difficult times
My anxiety was off the charts, and my love was not reciprocated, but that led me here (I couldn’t have asked for a better way of reciprocation)
I am grateful that I ended up getting employed again
I am grateful that everything is on the internet, now I have the opportunity to sit in New York and teach underprivileged children in India (for anyone who’s interested, these kids are amazing; the experience will change your life)
But most importantly, I am grateful for having found this community.

In this post, I guess I am just reiterating what all of us hear and practice every day when we meditate using our favourite app. But I just had to put it out there that I don’t know how I would have made it through 2020 had a friend not shown me this haven.

Let’s start this year being grateful for everything we have been blessed with.