Creating a Better Life

Gratitude for Interconnectedness

It’s been quite a while since I wrote a post on gratitude, but a few things, as well as a few new understandings, have come into my life that I’m extremely grateful for.

This was inspired by a couple of books that I finished reading yesterday. As a matter of fact, this article started off as an exploration of those books - but I realized that it goes much deeper than the books themselves.

I’m grateful to my mom and dad (if I remember right, it was mostly my mom) for giving me a love of reading. It’s opened up worlds to me that I would never have known, and it gave me a desire to produce the same thing - words that will uplift, inspire, and show others a way out of suffering.

One of the books I finished yesterday was a gift from Nneka of Balanced Life Center - Open Secrets - The Letters of Reb Yerachmiel ben Yisrael by Rabbi Rami M. Shapiro. It sat on top of my computer monitor, unread, until just about a week ago. It’s given me a new understanding of God, and I feel like I’ve finally got a rational way to look at myself and my relationship to the I Am. I’ve always known that they are one and the same, but I guess it took a teacher from a familiar, traditional religion to help this spiritual atheist become comfortable with the G word.

The second book is by Eckert Tolle - A New Earth - Awakening To Your Life’s Purpose. I was first told about it by Deborah, and I was able to purchase it from Amazon.com because of a gift from Karen. I’ve been reading on my lunch hours at work.

The biggest thing I think I got from this particular book was the idea that What we do isn’t quite as important as How we do it (a very similar idea to doing things in the “Certain Way” a la The Science of Getting Rich). The What is secondary to the How… because no matter what it is we are doing, we can only do it now… and to worry about the what takes us away from that.

I also got a new look at the idea of reincarnation from this one. While Buddhism is one of the religions that I often feel most in touch with, I’ve never held much stock in the idea of rebirth - I’ve always figured that I would take it One Lifetime at a Time. But Tolle gave me a new understanding of it - we are always being reincarnated, every single moment… and Karma affects us right now.

In just a few paragraphs, I’ve already mentioned quite a few people and things to be grateful for:

My Ability to Read
My Parents
Nneka
Open Secrets
Rabbi Rami M. Shapiro
Eckert Tolle
A New Earth
Deborah
Amazon.com
Karen

If I look even deeper, though, there is so much more beyond these things to be grateful for.

Look at the first one on my list: My Parents

If my parents hadn’t had sex back in 1969, I wouldn’t be writing this today.

If my grandparents hadn’t done it way back when, I wouldn’t be writing this today.

If I continue to go back as far as is rationally possible, if the Big Bang [chuckle] hadn’t happened (if it really did), I wouldn’t be writing this today.

OK, I’ll get off of the sex thing now.

What about the people who published these books? What about DARPA, the creators of the internet, which brought all of these people, organizations, books into my life? What about the nameless editors, warehouse workers, shipping personnel, the people who fed them, the cars they drove, the cell phones they used, and the people who created those… all of the things that came together to create this moment.

Without billions of people, alive and dead, I wouldn’t be writing this today.

Thank you - in some way, you who are reading this have touched my life.

The next time you want to generate some gratitude, just pick anything in your environment that you are glad you have… it can be anything - the cup that holds your coffee, the chair you are sitting in, the computer or paper you are reading this on…

Then think about where it came from. And where that came from. And where that came from.

And realize just how much the universe had to conspire to get that cup of coffee, or book, or chair, or computer into your life.

It’s all connected. It’s always now. And it’s all God.

And for these things… I’m truly grateful.

[This post has been submitted to the 2007 Season of Gratitude project on Balanced Life Center]