For me this lesson came early in the form of my physical illness. Having to deal with frequent pain and discomfort, I learned to become truly grateful for every day that I felt good.
In July of 2011, I received a double lung transplant. This experience was by far the most physically challenging thing I had experienced in my life. The pain that ensued for the 5 days after my operation was beyond anything that I could have imagined. Although it was a terrible experience at the time, I am incredibly grateful for it because it gave me a window of perspective I would have never had the chance to see otherwise.
After the pain had finally subsided, every second was something I would describe as pure, exhilarating, ecstasy. It helped me see that just the state of being alive and on this planet right now is such an incredible blessing that it can flood our senses with joy, as long as we can perceive it as such. Every chance we have to experience a shred of joy or light is a gift of unfathomable value. A gift that we all overlook. The only thing greater than this gift is the fact that we can share it with others, which can cause it to be amplified to infinite proportions.
After experiencing these seemingly divine realizations, I started to have a sense that my level of gratitude and awareness had plateaued. It was only until recently, after a trip to India, that I would see how very wrong I was. Traveling to India was a truly humbling and eye opening experience on many levels. The extreme levels of poverty and pollution that people deal with there on a daily basis is something that I had never been exposed to before. The simple act of buying a small item in a village market would attract a crowd of beggars and merchants all vying for your attention in order to get a few rupees. Giving somebody mere pennies from your pocket could nearly bring them to tears of joy. I started to realize that just by looking how I do, being a white, American man, was enough to symbolize to them a never ending source of money. And they were right. By their standards, I had more money in my pocket than they would see all month, maybe all year.
At first it was an exciting and mesmerizing experience. But I would soon start to feel a sense sorrow and of unfairness. How could it be right that just because of where I was born that I would have access to so much more opportunity and resources, great healthcare, and clean living conditions? What did I do to deserve this and what did they not do?
It was this experience that catalyzed