Embracing Gratitude Amid Blessings

You can either take things for granted or take them with gratitude. - I think too often I am the latter. I have so many incredible blessings in my life that I often take for granted; a place to stay, money to buy food, amazing friends, an incredibly supportive and loving family, an awesome job, recently an amazing girlfriend, and most importantly a God who didn’t leave me hanging even though I screw up a lot, just to name a few. - I think especially in America it’s easy to take this stuff for granted because many are fairly commonplace. We’re surrounded by such immense blessing in America that it’s hard to imagine a life without it. - One of my biggest takeaways from my travels thus far is the excessive blessing that I have just being an American citizen. I did however take away another lesson and that is that gratitude has no relevance to your current reality. I’ve met people who live in mud huts with no electricity that are more stoked on life than people working a 6 figure job in America. - I remember back in Vietnam I filmed a doc where we gifted a family a new (very primitive) house that cost about $2000 US to build. It was basic but it was clean and had electricity. This house would have taken the family 25 years to save up for. The amount of gratitude expressed to us even without speaking a word of English was incredibly touching, meanwhile I’m over here complaining about having to walk in the rain or something dumb. Gratitude is not determined by your current reality but by your heart. Today I am incredibly thankful for a lot of things but my hope is that it’s not just expressed today, but that we can all live a lifestyle of gratitude especially towards the people we’re close with. So text a few friends and family and tell them how much they mean to you. It’ll make a world of difference. - Be blessed and stay stoked😎🤙 - • • • • • • #hawaii #passionpassport #nakedhawaii #eclectic_shotz #earthfocus #sunset #adventureculture #nature #earthpix #neverstopexploring #stayandwander #travel #awesomeearth #旅行 #sonyalpha #soft_vision #roamtheplanet #beautifuldestinations #bestvacations #ourplanetdaily #景色 #travelstoke #自然