Comfort is overrated.

Comfort causes us to not appreciate what is around us. If we have always lived in a big house in a nice neighborhood, we don’t know any differently.

Our standards are created only by what we know and what we are shown.

But life and learning and growing happens in the contrast.

Plop us in a neighborhood living under the poverty line and we will see what we have. It will make us more appreciative. It will make us want to find solutions.

Get out of your fishbowl. See, breathe and feel the contrast.

The world continues to be further divided.

Right <> Left

Black <> White

Good <> Evil

What the media writes gets replayed in our thoughts. The binary of the world forces our brains to choose.

Right hand or left hand? Red pill or blue pill?

But what if there is a third choice?

How about seeing the duality of this world – the recognition of and the interplay between black and white and all of the grey in between?

“I don’t think I can.”

Who is the “I” who is doing the thinking and who is the “I” who is wanting to do the thing?

They are not the same entity.

One is ego, and one is your true self.

Remove the ego and you get, “I can.”

[The ideas in this post originates with teachings from Eckhart Tolle, spiritual teacher and author of many pivotal books including A New Earth, which saved me from myself in 2012.]

We have holidays for everything.

You’ve got your standard Independence Day and Labor Day.

But then you’ve got the more interesting ones…

National Bird Day

Something on a Stick Day

California Poppy Day

Take Your Houseplants for a Walk Day

Looking at the calendar, I realized what these holidays ultimately are.

Days of gratitude.

And everyday, more and more holidays are being added to the calendar. And everyone gets excited because they get to celebrate all the things they love. I’m not so sure commercialized holidays are what will make us happier or more grateful.

Instead, maybe we can start to be grateful everyday for what we have.