"To feel grateful is one of the most important experiences we need as humans. When we feel it, there is an acceptance of everything in our life." -- Barbara Brennan

It's a simple word: grateful. But a big, HUGE change when a person gets it, really gets it. I'm one of those people, and at 55, I get it. It's thanking the force of love (God, Universe, however you call the mighty Source) for every act and process of your day.

So much I've overlooked and taken for granted. It is the key to abundance simply to be grateful. I watched a man across from me on the train tonight. He was sitting, sleeping and slumped against the wall, and he woke up long enough to spit and drink the last of his vodka from his pint. I looked at him. He was a nice looking man who was someone's son, maybe brother, maybe husband or father. And yet he'd forgotten he has a glowing light inside him, never doused and never needing to be lit by alcohol. I tried visually to connect my light to his and his was there, deep, deep under layers of pain and lower self ego. Mine is covered, too, and yet, I have evolved enough to know there is a way to uncover it and grow.

Tonight I climbed my five flights of stairs to my apartment. Usually by the third landing, I am grumbling inside to get to the top in order to take off my coat. But tonight, I thanked God for each step.

For too many years I have pined for another existence, another environment, or a better one in the center of the universe known as New York City. Tonight, I climbed each step in full thankfulness. Because, it doesn't matter where you live or what you think you need when you realize this: when you humbly love, and appreciatively live, you begin to know you are the same love as the one who has forgotten. And still that light continues.