Gratitude - Arfa Khan

We all are familiar with the feeling that life is not as we want; our relationships are not deep enough, we are not successful enough, and we don't have the things we crave. This is the feeling of dissatisfaction, a feeling that makes you at others with envy and at yourself with shame. Social media makes it worse by showing us the picture-perfect life others have, unlike us. We have seen many people laughing and enjoying their lives...but their lives aren't perfect too. Then why are some people happier than others? Can we also apply their methods to be more comfortable and more satisfied? It all sums up to one thing - Gratitude. 

Gratitude is a feeling that connects us with the positive side of the world. There are many ways to practice it, like gratitude journaling, where we write about the things we are grateful for. There are many everyday things in life for which we should be grateful, and we might be taking them for granted, like:

1. Recovery/ Post-Crisis -

Life can feel fabulous after recovery like an enormous burden has been lifted off our shoulders. We can do many things that we couldn't do earlier. Objectively, our life would be the same or maybe slightly worse than before, but we compare the present to when life was terrible and react with gratitude.

2. Our Relationships-

We might feel lonely or want more friends, but there might be one or multiple people wanting to spend time with us. We might feel this is not enough and feel bad. If we're grateful for our relationships, we might accept the offers or take the initiative. Many people don't have anyone and suffer from mental illnesses, but we have many people who care for us.

3. Anyone who means a lot to you-

There might be someone significant in our lives, and we can't imagine life without them. By comparing our life with and without them, we feel grateful that they are with us.

4. Fate-

We have many things in our everyday life many don't have, like clean water and food, money, access to the internet, limbs, eyes, ears etc. We should be grateful for these things.  

Scientists have found many benefits of gratitude journaling. Many participants showed more happiness and life satisfaction after practising for a few weeks and even a change in brain activity after a few months. It's pretty mind-blowing that something as simple as writing about a few things you are grateful for can help fight dissatisfaction. We know our life is hard, but it might not be as bad as it seems if we look from a different perspective.

•  Arfa Khan 

  Ahlcon Public School

Sources:

https://leadchangegroup.com/daily-gratitude/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPPPFqsECz0&t=15s

 

I had a fight with my friend - Our Reflections

Reflecting on our reading of Swami and Friends by RK Narayan, chapter In Father's Presence. - Pestalozzi Children's Village, India

"I once had a fight with my friend. All we did was pull each other's hair and end up hurting ourselves." Kanika Dogra 

Tenzin Lhadon

Tenzin Yangzom

"Quarrelling with my friend about small things." Tenzin Paldon

Anchal Kumari

Prerna Thakur

A Dilemma - Reveda Bhatt

"…wondering whether I wait to live or if waiting is also living;" - From 'Extinctions' by Sharmistha Mohanty.

Due to the greed pertaining in humans, which doesn't seem to have an end, every moment of our lives is spent waiting for something from our to-do list. Some people are lucky enough to get what they want while waiting for theirs, and some do not understand that what they lost for what they wanted was what could have been gained.

In life, some of us just fix a pinpoint around our life circles wherein instead of living freely, we tie ourselves onto a mystical bull's eye, which we aren't even sure about. We, people, save money for our future or future generations, dragging ourselves into a so-charming-as-seen-superficial bond which limits our life, wings, and flight.

Now, realizing what we are doing with our lives raises a dilemma: whether to wait to live or to live! Taking a step towards waiting to live, the thought popping into our mind is the worry about whether the next generation would be much self-obsessed to even pay us back for the time we spent establishing a bright future for them. Believing they won't, we reframe our step back towards the initial position and then towards living, when we tend to wonder what if our next generation will not be able to get all the best things in life just because of our one stupidity to live freely and fully. That is how few moments of
our lives slip off our hands just like that, waiting for another.

The fact that we limit ourselves in this materialistic world when we can grow out of it really makes me wonder why we want such pleasures? It's not that I am saying let go of them. No! We also need them for our living, but picking out for them in excess is bad. It shouldn't ever be like you are stealing someone's right. All I am saying is that what gets sowed here on this planet, ultimately, wilts.

We get decayed in the same soil where we used to play, blow away in the same air that we
used to breathe, flow out in the same water that we used to swim in and get ash-ed up in
the same fire that once used to give us warmth.

In the past few years, I've learnt that by waiting for something else to come in, we make something go out, out of our mind, out of our soul, out of our body and lives. Halting for a moment to catch on, we lose another. People come, people, go, and moments come, moments go, although once the present is gone, it never comes back but haunts you as your past, a past that could have been better.

So, what I've been doing since those years after realizing that waiting is also living, is- "Forget the past, live in the present and think of the future."

Future, too, sometimes, but not always.
Long way ahead!? 

Reveda Bhatt

Grade IX

The Aryan School, Dehradun

Image courtesy My Good School, spreading the joy of learning for a better tomorrow.