I have the BEST luck… at having bad luck.
I don’t just mean bad luck in silly, miniscule ways. I mean like catastrophic Murphy’s Law sorts of bad luck.
I frequently hear the term “This would only happen to you”, because it truly does seem like I face an abnormal amount of misfortune.
Obviously after a while, and many, many, MANY bad moments, I started to feel incredibly bitter at life, like it was out to get me. Like I was on “Impractical Jokers” in real time, and somehow was ALWAYS the loser.
But despite this bitterness, I made a vow to myself this summer to practice gratitude. To stop every day and remember the things that I am grateful for; Anything at all that helped me make peace with the abundance of other things that I definitely felt nothing good towards.
I struggled. Life felt even more out to get me. It felt like on the days I was finally feeling gratitude and appreciation for the good things another humbling moment would let itself in with no warning.
I made it to the last few weeks of summer and felt like I sort of accomplished my goal. It was as though I did the best I could with the cards I was dealt, and I was okay with my progress, even though it was less than satisfactory.
You’ll never guess what happened a little over a week before summer’s end. Or you probably will, because yes, I was struck with yet another bolt of horrific mishap.
I was slicing vegetables with a mandolin, as I had done several times before no problem. Everything was the same as always, except this time my father and sister were serving as spectators and persistently saying things like, “Don’t cut your finger off.”.
Of course, on my hundredth time doing this, but the first someone ever mentioned harm, I cut the tip of my finger right off.
I was taught two things immediately. Never underestimate the power of the universe (you will cut your finger tip off), and never underestimate how much a tipless finger can bleed. Wow, was it way more than I ever imagined. Crime scene, in my kitchen.
Obviously after that long day, a hospital trip, the pain of having exposed nerve endings cauterized, and also the absurd fact I now was lacking the pad of my finger, I was so incredibly defeated and angry. Was this my end of summer gift after trying so hard to gain a new perspective?
I wallowed in my misery. I was in pain yes, but I was more sarcastic and bitter than ever. People asked me if it was my dominant hand. I had the joy of responding, of COURSE it is my dominant hand!
Part of my new routine, with having a wound that could reopen itself at any moment, is having to take a shower wearing a protective waterproof glove, tied at the wrist to prevent water from flowing in. One day while I was taking yet another one-handed shower, I thought to myself “I can’t imagine having to do this all the time.”
In that moment, I finally got it. Gratitude didn’t have to be a mechanism of scraping around trying to think of something, anything, that was better than my unfortunate circumstances. It could be finding a way of being grateful for even the bad things, in a unique and weird and even uncomfortable way.
Sure, my hand was down and out, and even now I can’t do a lot of things normally, but I can be grateful that it could be worse. That I still have a finger. I still have a hand. It will heal and I will get it back.
As much as I hate to sound corny, I literally had a painful awakening.
Since then, my practice in gratitude feels more fulfilled than ever. I feel grateful to even talk about gratitude.
Next time you want to consider what you are grateful for… consider what you AREN’T grateful for. You might just realize a few things.