Gratitude of Attitude

“The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude.” – William James

If I were to describe the past two days of my life, the above quote would be it. I was taught to alter my attitude and look at life in a different light and will be a source of inspiration for years to come. Thanks to the children from 2 unsuspecting NGO’s.

I had the privilege of meeting some children from very different backgrounds and dealing with adversity that either nature or other situations in life has put them into. But instead of complaining they have taken things in their stride and shown me that a beautiful flower can blossom in the murkiest of water.

As part of being a volunteer, this year I was associated with 2 NGO’s “ Ashray Akruti” and “Asha”

While Ashray Akruti helped run a school for the hearing impaired, Asha is involved in running a school for the slum/underprivileged children. In both the cases, one thing they all never lacked is enthusiasm to smile and learn. Credit goes to the NGO’s and parents who provide them with the required attention and infrastructure to bring out their hidden talents.

But amongst all this I thought I learnt some valuable lesson on our approach and attitude towards life. While having crossed some distance in life and having the knowledge to retrospect and know what can and cannot be achieved by education, money; the value of family and friends – I felt the kids were so called “less fortunate” - but the fact of the matter is for the kids it is anything but that. It was the life they had always known, and they are cheerful and happy about it. I have never heard anyone complain about their situation – in fact they were all too eager to showcase their talents which took me completely by surprise and was left amazed. Having heard stories from the kids it would blow your socks off to know how they had acquired their talents – just amazing.

The way I see it, the glass is half empty because we choose to see it half empty – if we chose to see it half full we are right there too. A problem is a “PROBLEM” because we want to see it as an adversity and try to feel victimized by life – but the moment we refuse to believe that an adverse life situation is anything but a problem and look at it as an opportunity – we have won half the battle. The other half of the battle is to keep these demons of negative thought at bay and find ways of enriching ourselves and making the GLASS FULL as the saying goes It’s all in the mind.

“It is our own mental attitude which makes the world what it is for us. Our thought make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light. First, believe in this world” - Swami Vivekananda