Appreciating LIFE

When was the last time you too a moment and really appreciated your life? Have you taken some time lately to sit back, examine your life, and realize how fortunate you are and how amazing life is?

Tomorrow is a special day for me. It is the 8th anniversary of the day I received my Heart and Double-Lung transplant. For me this day is a special as my birthday, maybe even more so. This day is the day that I was given a second chance to live life, and in the last eight years, I've been blessed to be able to experience many things that I would never have experienced otherwise.

I've been able to get married and have a child. I never thought I'd be able to have a family of my own. It's been an amazing blessing. I've also had the opportunity to become a runner, something I was never healthy enough to do before the transplant. Finally, I've been blessed to become a speaker and travel North America meeting thousands of amazing people, and hopefully inspiring them along the way (www.MarkBlackSpeaks.com). So when this day comes along each year it is a reminder to me to appreciate the life I've been given and ask myself if I'm appreciating it the way I should. (To learn more about becoming an organ donor, go to: http://www.organsandtissues.ca/english/ldpe/pdfs/English_LDPE_Brochure_NDD.pdf

So what do you have to be thankful for? What are you taking for granted in your life? Do you have children? Do they get on your nerves sometimes? Of course they do;)but you also love them more than anything in the world. Which do you spend more time focused on? Do you take time to appreciate that love and the miracle that is their lives?

The truth is that we're all guilty of taking things for granted in life (myself definitely included). The challenge is to recognize when we're falling into that pattern and shake ourselves out of it. It doesn't take much thinking to come up with something to appreciate, not does it take some major life event like a birth, or my case a transplant. For example, this morning I awoke to a beautiful blue sunny sky. The same blue sunny sky we've enjoyed all summer here in Atlantic Canada. Last summer we hardly saw that sun. So we're all very appreciative of it this summer. Last week we were forecast to be hit with Hurricane Earl. All indications were that the heart of the storm was going to hit us and hit us hard. In the end, it brushed by and hardly hit us at all. There was little to no damage done and everyone is fine. Something to appreciate; it could have been much, much worse.

So this week I challenge you to appreciate your life. Enjoy it. Recognize all of the things that are going right and focus on those rather than on the things that maybe aren't quite where you'd like them to be. By doing this you will not only realize how fortunate you are, but you'll also be in a better position mentally and emotionally to do something about the parts of your life that you want to improve.

Have a great week. And by the way, I very much appreciate the opportunity to share these thoughts with you and that so many of you take the time each week to read them!