A Letter of Gratitude to My Readers
From the depths of my soul to the expansiveness of your heart, thank you
Two weeks ago, as I prepared for a four-day Nature Immersion (camping and spending every precious, sun-drenched moment outside), I had one of the worst, most excruciating headaches that I’d had in years. In fact, the past month has seen me with a prolonged migraine every week and without adequate medicine.
As I went through this torture and missed self-imposed writing deadlines, I kept close in my heart that I needed to send out a gratitude-drenched letter of appreciation to my readers on Medium.
It kind of sounds strange, once I type it out: “my readers.” The main thing is that saying “ my readers” reinforces that Medium is a community ecosystem.
We share feedback, new ideas, inspiration, and vulnerable stories, all for the sake of helping our neighbor while coincidentally also helping ourselves.
We, everything, and everyone are interconnected, each playing a vital role in this very moment.
And so, across time and space, here is that letter:
Dear readers, I thank you continually in my heart. And I can clearly see that this is the beginning of lifelong friendships and fellowship. From the depths of my soul to the expansiveness of your heart, I thank you for a timeless testament to the luminous tenacity of the human spirit. Let us view each other through the lens of hope and compassion, from the deep well of gratitude.
Let us bathe in gratitude and appreciation, for it’s all that we really have.
Because to me, our joy and happiness in life is increased through our capacity to feel gratitude, and that steadfast belief outweighs any occasional setbacks or disappointments.
To be cynical about life renders us incapable of enjoying the good things, the novel experiences.
Seneca once said, “I am grateful, not in order that my neighbor, provoked by the earlier act of kindness, may be more ready to benefit me, but simply in order that I may perform a most pleasant and beautiful act.”
So I thank you. Thank you for reading, commenting, highlighting, and providing valuable insight and food-for-thought through our conversations and your articles.
Thank you for your inspiration, love, compassion, and kindness. And if you don’t agree with my articles, still, thank you for reading. I honor the light in you, and the timeless reflection of innate goodness.
Throughout the month of August, I will be taking things as they come, on a two-article-per-week schedule while caring for myself and others (inspired by Sumera Rizwan: here and Trista Ainsworth: here) and continuing to heal from chronic illness.
One day at a time, friends, one day at a time.
Please know that you are love and that life is never perfect, but that, in the end, each of us in our loftiest ideals reflects the beauty in another.
We are indeed mirrors.
And in the most serendipitous way possible, let gratitude, kindness, and creative pursuits lead the way until another day begs that we begin anew.
I’d like to leave you with a passage from the great Roman philosopher Seneca’s “Letters from a Stoic,” as well as a handful of other quotes:
“We should try by all means to be as grateful as possible. For gratitude is a good thing for ourselves, in a sense in which justice, that is commonly supposed to concern other persons, is not; gratitude returns in large measure unto itself. There is not a man who, when he has benefited his neighbor, has not benefited himself, — I do not mean for the reason that he whom you have aided will desire to aid you, or that he whom you have defended will desire to protect you, or that an example of good conduct returns in a circle to benefit the doer, just as examples of bad conduct recoil upon their authors, and as men find no pity if they suffer wrongs which they themselves have demonstrated the possibility of committing; but that the reward for all the virtues lies in the virtues themselves. For they are not practiced with a view to recompense; the wages of a good deed is to have done it.”—Seneca
“If we take man as he really is, we make him worse. But if we overestimate him … we promote him to what he really can be.”—Viktor Frankl
“Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”— Annie Dillard
“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson
“All you need are these: certainty of judgment in the present moment; action for the common good in the present moment; and an attitude of gratitude in the present moment for anything that comes your way.”— Marcus Aurelius
“Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”—Eckhart Tolle “Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good.”—Maya Angelou
P.S. One last thing, friends, do you find it helpful to be tagged in articles such as these? I started a massive tag list for this article because I’m all about inclusiveness and it pains me to leave anyone out. So what do you think, tags, or no tags? Thanks for your feedback! You are appreciated. ❤
With love and gratitude, Aurora