Gratitude and Appreciation

Today is Thanksgiving in Canada. It's an important day because no matter how bad things can get, they can always get worse. That's why it's important to be grateful for what we do have because everything can change in a New York minute. What we do have can be gone instantly. Gratitude helps lift us out of the pity party of pride that compares us to others.

There will always be people with more and less than you. Comparing ourselves to others is a self defeating path. We need to set our own goals in life and make our own way. Social media is toxic. They say if you don't have haters, that means you never stood up for anything in life. Listening to haters is pointless. It's a waste of time. Taking time out for self reflection is always helpful.

Pondering the solemnities of eternity helps us keep things in perspective. Especially when we get older we like to look back and reflect on the shadows we cast. What kind of footprints we leave behind in society. How we will be remembered. When I was young I had an affinity for Zen. I really enjoyed the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Zen isn't a religion it's just a way of thinking outside the box. It puts religion into perspective. For some the bible is like a Zen parable where a young boy asks a wise old man what the moon is. The man in his wisdom simply pointed to the moon so the boy could see for himself.

Unfortunately, the boy's admiration for the old man's wisdom focused on the finger and couldn't look past it to see what it was pointing to. That's kind of how I feel about religion. I passionately support the freedom of religion but I kind of do my own thing. Good and evil is obvious and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to discern the difference between the two.

You don't need a religion to do good. Religion can certainly help inspire bad men to be good and good men to be better. There's nothing wrong with that. We should all aspire to something higher. Religions help us organize our good intentions and give us opportunities to serve. That's important. Without religion we often don't really get anything service related accomplished.