Stories of Kindness from Around the World

It sounded like ice, that awful scraping cacophony I experienced up in icy Cook Inlet years ago. It didn't alarm me, and that's how I knew I was asleep, because there was no ice where we were. My door flew open, the engineer shouting, "Get Up!" I rolled out of my rack and climbed the few steps up to the wheelhouse, and there in front of us was the reef marker, the one that we aren't supposed to get anywhere near. We were hard aground, and in the open waters a 6 ft swell was rolling in over the reef, picking up the vessel and dropping us onto the reef with an intimidating shudder. We were stuck, and were were going to break up on that reef if we stayed there. In the dark Alaskan night near the time of the solstice, if you went into the water you only had a few minutes before hypothermia, unconsciousness, and death came.

I started telling jokes. No one was hurt! The vessel was still holding together, and if it didn't we had the life rafts. Even when all our priorities shifted to little more than survival, there was much to be thankful for. When you find yourself in that kind of situation, dwelling on the failures that got you to that point serves no purpose. Worrying about it will not save anyone, so we went to work. We ripped ourselves off the reef and limped over to a protected bay, the bottom holed but not all the way through the tanks. I'll never forget the feeling of being safely anchored in the bay after that ordeal.

I like to say that it makes no sense to focus on the 5% of bad in your life, when 95% of it is good. In truth, even when 95% is bad, it still makes sense to be thankful for the 5% good. There is always something to be thankful for in a horrible situation, always something to be learned on a spiritual level. If your attention is focused on becoming a victim of a disaster, so it shall be. If you focus on being a survivor, so it shall be. Your choice.

Gratitude isn't just a direct line to happiness, it can also save your life! Always be thankful, because you can always find something to be thankful for.