Seasons come and go, as will the ‘thankful’ reminders that are ever present this time of year. Rather we here at JTA Wellness encourage you to live EACH day with an attitude of gratitude. There is this wonderful story of a man who in his later years begun to notice the brevity of life and savoring each given moment with a morsel of gratitude. We would like to share with you his story of ‘a thousand marbles’:

You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about 75 years. I know, some live more and some live less but on average, folks live about 75 years.

Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900 which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime.

It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be 75, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy.

So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up with 1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside a large clear plastic container next to the radio. Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away.

I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight.

This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time.

The key with this story is perspective and attitudes are not given but rather a call to action that grants us the gift of being grateful and thankful each day of the year!!