Shifty Gratitude

There are days when I am grateful for everything I have—down to the fact that I have something to do during the day and that there are people who need my skills and efforts. To be able to contribute something to the world is a joy. Then there are days when I feel restless and everything seems grey and worn out. I become anxious that I am not opening other doors of opportunity. I question how I am spending my life, which reminds me every night, by its passing, how finite it is. 

When I feel lucky to be alive or excited to be in the environment that I am in, then I guess that is when gratitude for the smallest privileges of being alive on earth is easiest. But once good health or where I live becomes familiar and which I can count on to appear before my eyes every morning, I begin to hunger for something else. 

When I take what I have for granted rather than the good fortune that it is, I am dissatisfied. What else can fill me up and how quickly would I want more or something else again? Gratitude is shifty and human desire is endless.