Gratitude Meditation XVI

Daily Meditation 507–7/17/2023
Gratitude Meditation XV

Each day we must remember the person we might’ve been born into, instead.

A starving, swollen-bellied child with limbs like bones stretched over with flesh.

A child kidnapped and repeatedly raped for grown men’s pleasure and other men’s pimp money, victims of sex trafficking.

A victim of drug addiction, each day starting at any hour, mind racing and torn asunder by thoughts about how to eat, and what to do to score your next hit.

Someone born healthy and then robbed at a young age of mobility, sight, or sound by disease or accident.

Be grateful for the life you have, as you could always have been born somewhere much worse, have suffered horrifically, or been in perpetual privation or war or other atrocities.

You’re here, maybe on your couch, bed, or toilet (with nearly 100% of the time running plumbing) enjoying philosophy and higher meaning — purpose in life — instead of having been born a child soldier or sex slave. Instead of suffering in starvation, you are gratefully able to access this article any time you like from your phone.

Life if good — always — but it is made sweeter with gratitude.

Take time — always — to remember the contrasts of it.

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These are distillations from my coming book “YouDaimonia: the Ancient Philosophy of Human Flourishing.”