Remembering to be grateful

I found a good piece in the Christian Science Sentinel: (btw, I think that it's appropriate that I put this in for a marked contrast to my previous post)

Remembering to be grateful
Marilyn Jones
SENIOR WRITER

I was in a temper. How unfair my parents were to me. Or anyway, that's what I was thinking. All I'd asked for was a new ski jacket--but a nice one, not some cheap knock-off from the Post Exchange, where my dad usually went for bargains. But they refused my insistent pleading, demanding, whining. Finally, completely frustrated and feeling tragically sorry for myself, I tore out the front door, jumped in the car and gunned off down the street.

As I crossed a big bridge over Newport Bay, I spotted a man walking along in a beautiful, expensive ski jacket--just like I wished I had. "Lucky YOU!" I mumbled belligerently to myself. "You get EVERYTHING!" Just as the words made it out of my mouth, the man turned, and I realized that one arm of the jacket was pinned up. He had only one arm.

I know. It sounds made up, it's so classic. But it really did happen. And it taught me a humbling, deeply felt, and ongoing life-lesson about gratitude: To be thankful and satisfied with the abundance and goodness I already have.