There is a good thing about dwelling in the past, and that is you may well come to feel that your life wasn’t so bad after all!

In fact, you see now that your life was good. From this distance of time and space, you begin to perceive just how good your life has been. You begin to see that you were perhaps a bit fussy in what you had expected from life. At the time, you may not have seen yourself as a lucky one, and now you begin to see.

You now may well see that you were buoyed by life, and, indeed, you may well see now that you were one of the fortunate ones, one of the very fortunate ones. You would have indeed had greater fortune if only you had appreciated what life was bestowing upon you at the time.

Often My children are like the little child who didn’t receive the doll she wanted, and she is bereft. That may be all she thinks about for a while – the doll she didn’t have. Is that not like you some of the time or all the time? Isn’t it? You wanted this, and you wanted that, and you didn’t get what you wanted. Other times you got something you wanted, and it didn’t turn out to be so fine and dandy. Yes, you cannot always predict life, and, yet, you can always appreciate the gifts you have and have, perhaps, overlooked because you didn’t know enough to appreciate. Towards life, you may have looked up as an imperial majesty, expecting life to do your bidding, and outraged when it does not.

And, of course, there are all the golden gifts of your life that you may well not have taken into consideration. Family, for instance – so, okay, they’re not perfect, yet they are family and they are your family.

You may not have taken your good health into consideration. It was nothing to complain about, and, yet, you may have found something regarding your physical condition to complain about – your legs are too short, your complexion imperfect, and so on.

You are either too young for something or too old. You either have too many children or none. You have too much to do, or not enough to do.

The list of supposed inadequacies goes on and on. If there can be an impediment anywhere, you will find it. Blessings you may forget to look for.

Let everything in your environs be a blessing to you. Look at all the energy that went into the carpet you have under your feet, or the green of the grass. Let everyone you meet today be a blessing in your life, and you in theirs. You don’t have to tiptoe in life, yet, certainly, you can pick up blessings as you go along.

When you consider your blessings right now, just as they are, you will not accrue regrets. What will you regret when you appreciate everything now? Yes, appreciate every person, every thing, every event. You don’t have to make this a big project, yet you can give a nod to everything that did not happen as well. There is no end to what you can find to be grateful for. Be grateful then.

In the world I dream of, there are no should-have-been’s or must-be’s or lost chances or ill fortune. In the world I dream of, there are smiles and looking forward to what is coming, and there is reaping crops and loving and listening and gatherings of hearts. There is appreciation established as a way of life. There is appreciation.