Sadness and Gratitude

I started off this Monday morning with a great meditation. I use the Calm app and today’s theme was gratitude where we ended the meditation with a reflection on people that we’re grateful for.

It was a great morning until I started catching up on my phone. There was some bad news from a friend regarding her mom’s declining health and then I read news about one of my favorite athlete’s mom suddenly passing away.

On my walk to work, I was able to reflect a little bit on the bad news that I just read and started to really notice the suffering from some of the homeless people around me in the financial district.

The news had me a bit emotional and made me realize the day to day struggle that some live through. A very positive morning turned into a somber, sad, and emotional morning for me.

I wish happiness is a permanent thing in life, but the unfortunate reality is that life is full of both happiness and suffering. There’s a lot of luck and bad luck in this journey of life.

Reflecting back on my morning, I think it’s good to turn back to gratitude. It’s important that I remain grateful for everything I have in this life. There’s nothing guaranteed in life and you don’t remain lucky forever.