Hello everybody, James Mays here. I want to talk about gratitude today. I pulled up a quote from the Dalai Lama. “Every day, think as you woke up today, I am fortunate to be alive. I have a precious human life. And I’m not going to waste it.”
Welcome to another post of Raising Musicians, the Blog for parents that helps us understand how to empower our children to enjoy a lifetime love of music.
So I wanted to talk about gratitude because it’s the year anniversary of COVID-19. We’ve all been very cooped up, and it’s just a trying time for everyone. We’re all tired. It’s been a tough year. It’s easy for me to wake up unmotivated. If I’m not clocking that and practicing self-care around it, that spills out into my relationship with my son and my relationships with everybody else. I need to hone in on that, so I’m bringing my best to that. I’m parenting the best I can to be in a relationship with people the best I can.
As a musician, I’m playing music in the deepest, most soulful way that I can. I wanted to talk about what I’m doing today, so I woke up feeling blah. I just went through the list for myself of things that I’m grateful for: Hey, my heart’s beating today. I can breathe. I have a bed. I have shelter. I have food that I can eat. My life is okay. I have people that I love in my life. I just started to get that machine rolling off. Okay, things are going fine. That gets me in the headspace of being appreciative and bringing my best to my relationship with everybody and my music, art, and work.
So just a little something I wanted to share with you about gratitude. See if you can make your list today and take it to the people you love and tell them what you’re grateful for, about them and about what they bring to your life.
That’s it, I’m James Mays, signing off. Have a great day.