What I am grateful for on this Thanksgiving?

Happy Thanksgiving - the celebration of divine goodness!

I think this is one of the most beautiful holidays in the world - it is a celebration of divine goodness - the act of giving thanks.

I have written on the walls of my house - at the entrance as well as within my room in bold the photo above -

GRATITUDE!

If you think deeply - I would write something on my wall for 2 reasons:

1. Because I sometimes forget to be grateful for
2. Because I want to be reminded again and again about this - since I want to move forward in this direction

So let’s talk about - why I decided to write this on my walls. It was last year - I was in the middle of my biggest episode of depression. I lost all sense of purpose in life at that time. Every day - I was asking the same question myself - why do I live? What is my calling? What is my purpose?

Without answers to these questions - I was just spending time in nature and reading philosophy or whatever book I could find to improve the quality of my life. It’s when I started thinking, how far have I come in life?

Slowly and slowly - I started thinking about my past and the progress I have made.

• That I was born and brought up in a small village in India - Rampur
• My dad somehow managed to pay my fees in school - mostly after the due date - he just wanted me to get an education
• My mom and dad - worked hard the entire time to get us kids to a bigger city for better education in high school
• My parents supported me - when I wanted to get coaching for college like IIT
• I managed to get into IIT - as one of the last people - but yes - through one of the toughest examinations in the world
• I wanted to become the college president - someone who neither could write nor speak in English - became the president of the college within 3 years
• I met one of the most successful alumni of the college - Vinod Gupta who picked me from outside the dorm and helped me pay for my education at UC Santa Barbara
• Without knowing anything about the business world - no experience of working for a corporation - I managed to sell my business story and won 1st prize at the competition at UC Santa Barbara and made $12,500 as the prize money
• The courageous me - took my 1st shot at a startup - convinced investors who decided to support me with $75,000
• Even after the failure of the startup, the IIT community helped me find my 1st job in the field of my choice as a product manager

Thinking about all this - made me realize, how lucky and privileged I am today. The privilege of being here today is a gift. If any of the steps above would have been different - I won’t be living in America - my dream life.

This added an abundance of peace in my life and changed my mindset to a new mindset - how can I give back considering what I have received?

And everything changed since that time - the receiving mindset changed to the giving mindset. And a new me was born - who just wanted to give - whatever I had to share.

Rumi said Gratitude is the wine for the soul. Go on. Get drunk

So what I am grateful for today?

I am grateful to have found Marcus Aurelius’ literature for this - being able to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love, to read, to write - is enough of a gift for me now. I am also grateful for the rising sun - for always showing me the right direction.

What are you grateful for? What’s your story? We all have a different stories to share.

Happy Thanksgiving, have a beautiful day in paradise! ????????

Originally published: https://atal.substack.com/p/what-i-am-grateful-for-on-this-thanksgiving