Gratitude

I'm trying to be grateful these days. It's a good practice. Gratitude  transcends political, religious, and cultural boundaries; pretty much everybody agrees that it's a good idea. And since I'm trying to live a good life, I'm going with it.

A feeling of true gratitude, aside from Thanksgiving Day prayers and award acceptance speeches, can hit you like a brick wall when you least expect it. It's powerful, I tell you.

This morning on my way to teach Spanish, I asked myself, why am I getting up early to go and blabber to kids in Spanish who probably don't care about Spanish that much anyway? Why do these kids need extracurriculars? Do they even care?

I thought about all the people that have busted ass to try and educate me. Besides my family and all of my public school teachers, I had classroom volunteers, helpers, neighbors, family friends, and committees of people that really cared about my education and wanted me to have a good impact on this world. These people didn't even KNOW me and they were sacrificing their time and money so that I could live my live to the fullest.  I'm not sure if I really understood what they were doing for me because I was just a kid, but I sure as hell understand now.  To all those people, thank you. That's all.