{"id":34,"date":"2013-10-10T01:25:50","date_gmt":"2013-10-10T01:25:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/becausethisisyourlife\/?p=34"},"modified":"2013-10-10T01:33:51","modified_gmt":"2013-10-10T01:33:51","slug":"how-many-blessings-can-you-count","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/2013\/10\/how-many-blessings-can-you-count.html","title":{"rendered":"How Many Blessings Can You Count?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>During the course of your life isn&#8217;t it interesting how something that seems like no big deal at the time turns out to be a theme throughout your life?<\/p>\n<p>Case in point&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The first day in my new school\u00a0back when I was in 4th grade.<\/p>\n<p>We had just moved to a new town in New Jersey (Old Bridge) and this was my 5th school in the previous 8 months.<\/p>\n<p>I still remember being walked down the hallway. And interestingly enough, when I was brought into the classroom the teacher was teaching math&#8230;one of my favorite subjects.<\/p>\n<p>That, along with all of the eyes being on me, the new kid in class, I sensed that this was the place I belonged in. I had a feeling that something special was coming out of this. And sure enough we lived there until I graduated high school.<\/p>\n<p>It was the first time in my life that we lived in a place long enough where I was able to develop long term friendships. In fact, I still keep in touch with some of those &#8220;kids&#8221; who were there that day.<\/p>\n<p>Now that&#8217;s one blessing I can count in my life.<\/p>\n<p>What about you?<\/p>\n<p>How many blessings can you count in your life?<\/p>\n<p>This brings up a very interesting quote by Eric Hoffer&#8212;&#8220;The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But is it really that hard to count your blessings?<\/p>\n<p>Not really.<\/p>\n<p>In fact I can tell you, at the bare minimum, how many blessings you&#8217;ll have each day. It&#8217;s over 100,000.<\/p>\n<p>If your heart rate is 80 beats per minute that comes out to 115,200 per day. I told you math was one of my favorite subjects.<\/p>\n<p>Since my heart rate is on average 60 beats per minute, that comes out to 86,400 blessings per day.<\/p>\n<p>Ok, enough of the numbers and on to the main point.<\/p>\n<p>Every time your heart beats that&#8217;s something to count your blessings for&#8230;and that&#8217;s at a bare minimum.<\/p>\n<p>So the next time you feel that life is like a ticking time bomb ready to go off, always remember that the sound of your heart beating is a blessing you can count.<\/p>\n<p>But what else?<\/p>\n<p>Take a look at the different areas of your life. Whether things are going your way or not look for the blessings.<\/p>\n<p>I know this sounds simple and you most likely have heard it before.<\/p>\n<p>And part of it is simple. It&#8217;s just a matter of being aware and knowing when something comes up in your life that isn&#8217;t going your way, to remember and look for it&#8217;s opposite, the positives of that situation.<\/p>\n<p>Now here&#8217;s what you most likely haven&#8217;t heard before when it comes to realizing and then counting your blessings&#8230;or as many would say being grateful.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s say you&#8217;re feeling regret, depressed, or even betrayed by someone. Now you may be thinking, &#8220;well if things would have gone the way I wanted instead, my life would have been happier, I&#8217;d be better off&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Think about that for a moment&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>What if things had gone the way you wanted? Would your life really have been better off? Would it have turned out in such a way that what you are experiencing now still wouldn&#8217;t be there to some degree.<\/p>\n<p>The point here is to look at those moments that haven&#8217;t or are currently not going your way and look for the blessings.<\/p>\n<p>And when you start looking back through your life you&#8217;ll see more of these blessings&#8230;many of which were there all along. Along with that you&#8217;ll also start to uncover different themes throughout your life.<\/p>\n<p>What those themes are throughout your life is going to be unique for you.<\/p>\n<p>The idea is to be aware that they&#8217;re sitting &#8220;right under your nose.&#8221; It&#8217;s just a matter of realizing what they are.<\/p>\n<p>And the way you start to find this out for yourself is to master the &#8220;hard&#8221; arithmetic of counting your blessings&#8230;which starts by knowing that every heartbeat your beautiful heart takes is proof that there&#8217;s already blessings in your life&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Simply because you&#8217;re alive. You&#8217;re here.<\/p>\n<p>And certainly because you have something of tremendous value to contribute to the world.<\/p>\n<p>So rather than looking at your life and wishing you &#8220;did&#8221; or &#8220;didn&#8217;t do something differently, realize that what you&#8217;ve done has served you (and others) in some way.<\/p>\n<p>Remember&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>In every crisis there&#8217;s a hidden blessing. That&#8217;s wisdom and having gratitude. And even greater wisdom and truer gratitude is realizing that in every blessing there&#8217;s also a hidden crisis.<\/p>\n<p>It may not seem like it at first, but when you look you&#8217;ll find it and your life transforms. Not only that but the ripple effect of it transforms the lives of those you care about most.<\/p>\n<p>And wouldn&#8217;t it be nice for you to live everyday knowing that you do matter&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>And that the uniqueness of who you are is special&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>And that you do make a difference in this world.<\/p>\n<p>The truth is&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>You are a very important person with so much to be thankful for.<\/p>\n<p>Count your blessings every day and know that it&#8217;s a blessing you&#8217;re alive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During the course of your life isn&#8217;t it interesting how something that seems like no big deal at the time turns out to be a theme throughout your life? Case in point&#8230; The first day in my new school\u00a0back when I was in 4th grade. We had just moved to a new town in New&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":556,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How Many Blessings Can You Count? - Because This Is Your Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Many Blessings Can You Count? - Because This Is Your Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"During the course of your life isn&#8217;t it interesting how something that seems like no big deal at the time turns out to be a theme throughout your life? 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