Every day, we go around not noticing what we have and that it was given to us. We don’t stop and think about the water from our sink or how we’re still able to run or play piano. We don’t think about those things, but that doesn’t mean they have no value. There is so much value in water, good health, memory, and just about everything else that is so common in our lives.

That’s the problem. We’ve gotten so used to these amazing things in our lives that we forget their worth and especially, we forget to be grateful for them. I know it’s not easy being appreciative for everything every day, but at the very least, we should know that every day, no matter how horrible, we were given at least 10 gifts that day.

I originally got the idea from the movie The Ultimate Gift. In this movie, a man is talking to himself and the main character asks what he’s doing. The man says that he’s making his list of 10 blessings. He said everyone’s got at least 10. Every single person has a least 10 blessings in their life that they might not even know about.

I for one forget a lot of my blessings. I forget about health, intelligence, and determination all the time. I rarely get sick or go to the doctor, but I don’t think anything of that. I excel in school but don’t think anything of that. I am determined and decently hard working, but I don’t think anything of that either.

These are all blessings in my life that I forget about. Same goes for the people in my life. I have an incredible family, great friends and amazing support at and outside of BG. Sometimes I forget about how blessed I am to have them. Even the PLA, college would've been a much harder and less enriching opportunity withhkout it. The PLA has already enriched my life with the expectations, opportunities, tools, and people it's given me. Blessing is too small of a word for that program and all of its people.

There are so many blessings in my life alone even when I'm struggling. And even in the darkest times when I forget even those, I know God is doing something with his bad day to give me a much better future.

That hope is a blessing too and one not many have. It's hard to hold on to that blessing and know it's there sometimes but I do still have it and it's still there lighting my darkness.

See, there are so many blessings we don't think about. From traits and physical parts of our lives to mental and spiritual state, there are a lot of blessings in our lives. We just have to look for, hold onto and count them. They're infinite.