gratitude, a review
i like to take time once in a while to be grateful. it helps ground me and reminds me what im taking for granted in my day to day.
first and foremost, i will always and forever be thankful that i still have my parents. i dont know how long i have left and it pains me to think about how one day ill come back home and my mom wont be in the kitchen making her incredible food or how my dad may not be upstairs in his room sleeping after work or scrolling reels.
the biggest reason i moved back home was to make sure i get time with my parents. what’s the point though if every time i come home i jump back into my room and carry on trying to do the same things. i need to make a better effort, again, to spend more time with them. how will i do that? tomorrow when i get back home ill spend some time talking to my mom and then some more time after talking to my dad.
im also grateful for my health. as far as i know at least, i have a healthy life ahead of me, i have both my eyes and ears, my body works fine, i have no back problems, and i wake up every day not having to think about my health. i want to make sure that i never get complacent about my health, staying active, eating right, and never drinking or smoking. it’ll pay dividends in the years to come.
the stress of money no longer exists either, and im very grateful for that. i have enough and i live within my means such that impulsive decisions, when they do happen, are not devastating. when my parents are stressed or my dad needs to pay some bills, i pay for it. i can take my family out to dinner more often and surprise grocery expenses dont hurt. i can buy more premium items at the grocery store and i dont worry about the price of things too much anymore.
still, i need to be more protective of my money. sometimes im too much of a spendthrift. at the end of the day, money is a means to an end and for me it’s a meaningful, fulfilling, and stress free life and i risk that every time i spend money on things i dont need.
another thing on the health note— im very grateful that my PRK surgery worked as well as it did and that i went to the doctor i did. they did screening prior to the procedure and before i stepped in that office, i had no idea what prk was. i thought i was getting lasik done. but then we found that my cornea was too thin. at the time, i was upset but then i read about prk and i was glad that’s what i ended up doing. prk, and i say this given my personal experience and intuitions, is much safer than lasik. the flap in the lasik procedure seems like a problem waiting to happen. and while the recovery time of prk is nearly 6 months, the long term outcomes, especially for someone like me who plays a lot of sports. ive been reading horror stories about lasik but i dont think ive read one bad thing about prk online. that just happened to be the luck of the draw for me.
131 - 07/28/2025