Part 2: Pray
Once again I would like to say thank you to you my lovely followers. We are making progress please share my page. It gives me strength to type another blog when I see a new follower.
On this Eat, Pray, Love journey, I am sure you have noticed that this blog touches on a person holistically. So today we are going to uncover the “spiritual” aspect of things.
I want to talk about the power of being grateful. As I look back at my life I am so grateful of certain things that worked out and those that didn’t work out. When you are in the situation it looks dark but when you take steps back or reflect, you realise that God was protecting you.
So what are you grateful for. Well the fact that you are reading this blog means that you are alive, despite the harsh Covid season. Be grateful.
Un grateful people make the world a sour place to be around.
If you do pray which I encourage you to, say God if you are real show me. Start listing things that you are grateful for. I know this may sound crazy, but be grateful for provision, you have a roof over your head. Your appartment may not be as big as you want it to be, but at least you have something to be grateful for, a roof over your head. Be grateful for health. Be grateful you have a functioning body. Be grateful for your spouse. Before you get annoyed by them, think of the lonely nights you had before them. Think of all the terrible experiences you had with previous lovers and now be grateful for them. We are assuming that you are in a healthy relationship, if you are being abuused physically, or emotionally the writer of this article is asking you to leave that relathionship as fast as you can.
Be grateful. No matter how small you may think your life is. As you yearn for more don’t forget to be grateful because somewhere in the world someone is praying for what you have.
I was in a lecture one day for my Masters, and I was getting bored we were doing a four hour lecture of semio-pragmatics and before I wanted to complain I thought of how I prayed to get my application accepted at this prestigious university. I thought of how difficult it is to get in. I literally changed my thinking from being a Debbie downer to saying God thank you for the chance.
The life of being grateful, is about changing the point of view. There are people who complain about everything their job. At least you have a source of income. The idea of being grateful makes you appreciate what you have even though you are yearning for more.
Being ungrateful makes people arrogant. An arrogant society creates unproductive people. We all can’t be sitting at home and creating content, someone needs to have a job to create a functioning society. Being grateful makes you aprreciate that life is seasonal. We also cannot live life behind a screen we need to experience life.
Being ungrateful will make you drown in debt. I have a friend who was asking me why I hadn’t gone to Paris in the past year and why I hadn’t updated my phone. At that time I didn’t see the need to do all those things she was asking me to. It wasn’t necessary or life threatening. Being ungrateful will slow down your progress. Her tone was rather accusing. It broke my heart to hear that she had taken a holiday and was in great debt, a big overdraft!
This is why a child born in certain parts of Africa, can be born and be happy. This is why someone will lash out and have a meltdown about how the prawns in their plate didn’t have enough paprika or something. In America a lot of people complain about how the system and everything else is so bad for black people. Now I am not denying that racism can be a problem it’s a cancer and ofcourse in a country that is rooted in slavery but why is it that the Africans who were raised in Africa, make it and they do really well when they come to America. Like Trevor Noah is from South Africa born in apetheid in South Africa. Chimamanda came to America as a student and she is now a best selling author. Nigerians who come to America become some of the highly educated and sucessful economic groups.
If you hear the humble beginnings of some of these Africans. Melissa Tate a Zimbabwean, who came from some of the harshest economic climates made it in America, she is educated and has a flourishing business. She even wrote a book.
In Africa children are raised with a sense of humility and attitude of gratitude. When the going gets tough you roll up your sleeves and work. How is it that someone can get a college degree and say my degree is useless, yet someone can be born in an enviroment where they are illiterate, they can’t read and write yet they will create a successive business from making beaded jewlery like the Masai women of Kenya.
I think problems will always be there. Circumstances will always work against you. But have a laugh, roll up your sleeves and have a vision board. Ungrateful people are retrogressive.
