Appreciation and Gratitude - Lets go deeper

Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim, helps me to look deep inside myself.  Here is one of those dives.

It is easy to say, thank you, and I really appreciate something.  I have done this thousands of times. But is there a deeper meaning to this.  If you do this only once when it happens, and you forget about it?  How thankful were you really?

I can't speak for everyone, but I can speak about me.  I have said thank you many times in my life to many people.  At the time when I said it, I felt very sincere.  And if I go back in time and think about it, I will be thankful again.

But that is the point,  I never or rarely really go back in time to review, and so I really don't experience and relive those feelings of appreciation and gratitude.

I have had some a few people in my life, such as Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim, that have been my teachers or mentors in life.  These people have helped me take the right paths in life.  And to be honest, many times I have taken a wrong path in life, and needed help getting back on the right track.

These can be major inflection points in your life.  They were for me.  The difference between being homeless or successful.  The difference between being happy or sad,  the difference in a happy relationship, or a damaging relationship.  We all have major inflections points in our life. What school did we go to?  What friends do we socialize with?  What relationships did we choose.  What major decisons have we made.  All these had and will have a major effect on our lives.

Most of us, would pay anything, to change from a bad relationship to a good one.  Most people desire success over failure.  So when we are miserable, we tend to think about this things, and we can get hateful and negative about the world.

On the other side, when things are going good, we tend to take things for granted.  We tend to think we somehow deserved it, or somehow we were just lucky.  But this is exactly why Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim's teaching is so powerful.  She would say to never take gifts for-granted.  Review your past and review these major inflection points in your life.  Review people that have helped you, and always remain humble.  Don't take these things for granted, or you can also lose them very quickly.

If you were lucky or fortunate enough to have taken a good path, play out in your mind the opposite set of choices.  What if you had made a bad choice.  Where would you be today?  Would your success fade away?  Would you be in a terrible divorce?  Would you be in jail or worse?  Would you be alive?  Do you see how bad it could have been?  If you truly can see this, your appreciation and gratitude to the people in your life that made a positive difference will really stand out.  I know they do for me.

Now that I am aware of this topic on a deeper level, I can't be thankful enough.  The few people that really made a difference in my life, those that reached out to me and were very patient and helpful to me, and I owe them so much.  I don't know how to ever repay them.  First, I really want to stay in this state of "thankfulness" and humbleness.  I didn't get here by myself, and I need God's help, and my teachers and coaches help.  Next I will continue to improve, and I feel that I can repay them, both thanking them again, but more importantly by continuing to do good, and helping others as they helped me.

Inspired by Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim