Often life feels like a constant endeavor to fill the gaps that we perceive and live with. We keep evaluating where we want to be, compared to where we are, whether it be across our health, financials, relationships, professional growth, and even our spiritual well-being. If we are not careful, our default paradigm becomes thinking about what we don’t have, running the risk of having much and yet living with anxiousness and often discontent.

Of course we need to have goals beyond where we are. Growth is the insignia of life. Also, the mind needs something inspiring and challenging, failing which we run the risk of an internal downward spiral of an idle mind. Our struggle is that we are often so consumed by what we don’t have that we lose sight of the larger picture.

Gratitude reminds us that even as we see gaps in our life, there is also so much in place and so many who are part of it. Sometimes, when we look around and see the challenges so many, including many close to us are going through, the gap of discontent is filled with a sense of feeling blessed.

We often trade the joy of the here and now for the promise of future happiness that we hope to get. The two are not mutually exclusive. When we strive for a better tomorrow, being fully aware and joyful in the moment, the joy of being, fills the gap of anxiety and stress.

There will always be people having more, and on the face of it doing better than us. Benchmarking is good to give ourselves a perspective, but the paradigm of constant comparison can make us cynical, frustrated and insecure. Our biggest strength is being secure within, knowing that the feeling of completeness is not dependent on what we have or not, but rather on who we truly are.

Life improves when we fill the gaps out there, but it truly changes when we are brutally honest and take the first step to fill the gaps within.

(Picture – CSMV Museum, Mumbai )