What are you thankful about?

-Prakash Srinivasan

In life sometimes we miss the obvious and one of the things that we rarely do (at least I) is to introspect about ourselves and determine the direction of our lives. Today we are very artificially busy, in the sense we are continuously bombarded by external medium/tools/gadgets etc etc. In this setting we lose sight of ourselves and it seems so funny and ironic, yet it’s true.

When I was thinking around these lines one day, I asked myself a very simple thing. What is that I am very happy about myself? What are those one or few things which defines who I am and for which I am proud and thankful for. I immediately could think of two things: One is my ability to sing and love music and another, my passion for walking.

Regarding singing, I am more of an amateur singer as I sing for myself and hum something all through the day. Singing gives me a lot of satisfaction and is the perfect outlet for channeling my energies in a positive way. Since I listen to a lot of music and I can also sing, it’s a wonderful combination which I feel very blessed about. I thank God every day for giving me this very spiritual talent. I say spiritual because it’s probably the most internal blissful experience, when a beautiful melody comes out through us, it revitalizes our whole being. The satisfaction is indescribable and it is more like a sense of fulfillment. When an amateur singer like me can feel like this, imagine how expert singers would feel! Expert singers and all musicians are more blessed because they heal hearts through their music and singing. Fans of eminent singers share a very deep and emotional connection with them, whether they are dead or alive.

The second thing is Walking. We nowadays read a lot about passionate runners who tirelessly train and run marathons/half-marathons/triathlons.  I love walking so much that if I had more time, I would try to cover all places within the city through walking. But any distance of up to 5-6 kms I always walk it down and its liberating. There is no worry of traffic snarls, long-waiting signals, one ways etc. We just choose our route and keep walking towards our destination at our own pace. There is no need to worry and hunt places for parking, we make our own road. We can also take as many diversions as we want. I have also realized that we can also check out so many shops, bookshops, restaurants more easily while walking, we also remember localities better because of walking as we are not hungrily zipping (because rarely do we get to speed nowadays) down that road.

Walking to me is a great blessing because my dieting and weight-loss plans are a perpetual piece of fiction and walking is saving me from becoming another obese hulk. I am ready to walk down for anything from the nearest park to the 5 km-away grocery chain. Maybe it’s a Godsend for me!

Ask yourself the question as to what are those few things that you are so happy and thankful about? When you find the answers, you will find life to be more exciting and fulfilling, you will love yourself more. Sometimes it can be just that one thing but it will be so powerful that it makes a huge difference to your life.