Indulgence

Thankful

Scott Adams
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.

I want to be grateful. I don't want to take anything for granted. Life could be worse. Life could be much, much worse. So I want to take this opportunity to be thankful.

I am thankful for my family. I have a wonderful family who understands me and if they can't understand me, they try to and they accept me without question. They will air their grievances, they will share their reluctancies, they will be open and speak their mind but they do not discourage me, they do not hold me back. They do their best to guide me but let me make my own mistakes -- they let me live my life. I am very thankful for a family like this. This is where all my luck went to: being born in this family.

I am thankful for my friends who chose to ride the waves of my emotions -- my many ups and downs. They accept me for who I am and love me for it, for everything that comes with it. I have fantastic friends who take care of me when I need to be taken care of and they allow me to take care of them. They let me go when I need to be free and do my thing and they hold on to me when I go too far, they won't let me go. They wait and they rush me. They smile when I make a joke and tell me that I did wrong when I do wrong. I am thankful for these people whom I found and who found me. We both make the effort to make this friendship work.

I am thankful for the blessing of being provided for. That no matter how indecisive I have been in my life and how careless and carefree I've been, I've never wanted for the things that kept me alive -- a roof on my head, food on the table and all the other basic necessities that I need to sustain my living everyday. I am thankful that an opportunity has always come when I needed it to come and that though I can only count 2 instances in my life when I have been wealthy and, maybe even affluent, I've never been hungry, really hungry and desperate enough to have been immoral. I am thankful that I've been in a position to make ends meet.

I am thankful for the times that I have been hungry, living alone and counting pennies and making sure that everything is paid and that I may have lived on instant noodles and peanut butter sandwiches for weeks on end and walked to work from where I lived (which was very far) that it taught me what I really needed in life and what it takes to stay alive and the value of working hard and earning your keep. I am thankful for the lessons it has taught me. It has inculcated into me the importance of paying your dues first before indulging in the pleasures of life.

I am thankful for the opportunities I've allowed myself to indulge in -- to have worked in a school and be a teacher, to have worked in advertising and know how hard it is to sell an idea, to have worked in the television industry and realise the power of media and its reach and the power of writing and how it reaches people and touches them in different ways and to be a performer and to realise how 1 moment of entertainment can be such a powerful thing. I am thankful that I've allowed myself to work hard and earn a trip to Shanghai and to many parts of my country -- La Union, Cebu, Bohol, Boracay and Palawan. I am thankful that I've taken the leap of faith across the chasm of uncertainty to have found that landing in the other side is both sweet and sour. The grass is greener on the other side but it has its flaws as well.

I am thankful for having an open mind and for allowing myself the flexibility to let new ideas come in. I am thankful that I am not set in my ways and that I allow myself to adjust and change when something new and innovative comes to mind. I am glad that the wold still holds wonders for me and that I will always be able to learn something from people. I am thankful that I am porous and that there I see the value of other people -- from learning from them and letting them affect me.

I am thankful that I am open to sharing my view with the world. I am thankful that I am open to the world and that I want to be a part of it -- by living it and sharing what I've learned. I am thankful that I understand the importance of communication; that through interaction can we truly enrich our own lives and others. I am thankful that people are open to hearing what I have to say and are honest about how they feel about what I have to say. I am not alone in this world.

I am thankful that I have not taken this world and all it has to offer for granted. I am thankful that I am alive and that I'm going through all this, that I am capable of experiencing happiness and sadness, pain and pleasure. I'm thankful that life is not meaningless to me and that I have the power to make my life better or worse and no one else holds that power over me.

I am very, very grateful.

posted by wanggo @ 5:26 AM