Looking For Miracles Everyday
How do you cultivate resilience and a positive outlook? How do you become the type of person who encounters hardship and setbacks with grace, does not get discouraged and bounces back? One way to do this is to slow down and take in all the miracles that surround you every day.
Say you go to your favorite restaurant one night after work, really looking forward to a tasty, nourishing meal. When the waiter comes to your table, he tells you about the dinner special for the evening and it’s the very same lasagna dish you had the first time you went and that you’ve been craving ever since. They don’t have it every day, but they do on the night you chose to go in. It’s a miracle!
Does that sound like an overstatement? It isn’t. Miracles are the things that enrich your life and provide evidence of good and wonder in the world, and they are everywhere if you decide to look for them. As I sit here typing this, I can think of so many right off the top of my head. I’m breathing fresh air, I’m healthy, I’m supported and loved in my life, I live in a free nation and I can look outside and see plants and other living things thriving in nature. It’s a miracle when you get to enjoy a cup of tea in the morning or when you hear a songbird outside your window or see a child with a big smile on their face.
These are mundane things that happen constantly all around us and they are miracles; but if you stop looking for and appreciating them, they seem to disappear. It’s easy to be negative, lazy and unmotivated in a world without miracles. What will it do for you when you make a consistent effort to truly recognise the miracles around you?
Practicing this type of gratitude and cultivating a positive outlook can help you when you face hardships, frustrations, fear and setbacks. When you don’t take time to appreciate all the places there is good in your life, the bad can seem bigger and badder. Think of how a normal day can suddenly become a bad day when little frustrations pile up. Then, consider that in the longer term, throughout a week, a month, a year, an entire life. It is much easier to be fearless, resilient and motivated when you go through each day with thoughts such as, “I’m sitting in a comfortable chair and enjoying this cup of fresh, hot coffee. It’s my favorite roast, and I brewed it just right, and I’m taking five minutes to enjoy it. What a miracle!”
If you are in the habit of finding, recognizing, and reflecting on the miracles around you, what do you think will happen when you experience a setback? A person who never stops to extend gratitude to the things around them likely won’t see any positives in their situation or maintain a sense of priority and scale when they face a problem. An inconvenience can ruin their mood and a setback can totally derail a goal. Stress takes over. On the other hand, a gracious, positive person, even when experiencing a setback, can look around and still see what is going right, and this allows them to move forward and seek solutions rather than get bogged down with stress and negativity. They will not feel that setbacks or hardships are the end of the world. Their energy stays high and focused because they recognize that their world has so much good in it.
There’s a saying that goes like this, “Never hurry, never worry, and always smell the roses on the way.” I love this saying. The next time you’re feeling overwhelmed by stress or a problem you’ve just encountered, think about it. Stop and look around you and find a miracle.