Wake Up Fortunate
Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it.
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, has described reciting this thought each morning as part of a personal practice kept for decades while living in exile from Tibet since 1959. Despite losing his homeland and carrying the weight of his people's suffering, he begins each day by naming his life as fortunate before any good news has arrived to justify it. This is not naive optimism but a discipline, a deliberate choice to notice what has already been given before the day's demands begin. For a reader still holding coffee at dawn, it is a reminder that gratitude does not need to be earned by the day ahead.
Reflection
He treats each new day as a gift before it delivers anything. What do I already have right now that makes today a gift?