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Greg said, "Juanita is right when she says "things could be worse". They could also be better. When it's you that rationale is no comfort. There's more to life than just waking up every morning." Perhaps Juanita's point was that her PWP used gratitude as a way of staying in positive emotional and spiritual balance. I tend to avoid "comparative" gratitude since it implies that worse is on its way, which takes me to tomorrow, which is a place in which I no longer want to spend time. When other things fail, however, it is a good fall back when I just can't stop focusing on my body. Much of the time gratitude for me takes the form of appreciation of Love, for no physical change in my body, or even my mind, can diminish the presence of Love and my ability to make the decision to embrace It.. Books such as "Tuesday's with Morrie," "Man's Search for Meaning," and "Out of Darkness and Into the Light," demonstrated to me that we have a capacity for choosing love in the face of great seeming physical (Lou Gehrigs disease), situational (Aushwitz), and just plain emotional difficulty. For most of my life I believed that I had no control over my thoughts, that the best I could hope for was to behave appropriately, despite what my mind was telling me. Today I believe differently, for I have experienced changes in my thinking patterns and content as a result of deliberate choices augmented by deliberate actions over the last 15 years of spiritual seeking. Paradoxically, however, the most profound changes didn't take place until PD came into my life, providing the last shove into today, where I choose most of the time to stay. I just got off the phone after an hour conversation with someone who is dealing with unhappy relationship issues and was seeking my experience in this area. I was focused completely on that person and didn't even notice that, thanks to parkie, the arm holding the phone went completely numb. My fingers still tingle as I type, but I can type (thanks Juanita). Each of us is on our own very special, but ultimately connected path, and today I am filled with gratitude for the guidance that pulled me kicking and screaming into taking responsibility for my own thoughts, for I now understand that I have the power to choose love and gratitude instead of fear and resentment. Greg finished his post with these words: " Existence is not living. I know the clichés like, "life's what you make it"; "if life gives you lemons, make lemonade"; "is the glass half empty or half full?" I never was any good at making things, I hate lemonade, and every glass I pick up I seem to break, so now what?" These words could have come from me 15 years ago. Between then and now were the books listed above and half a dozen others which profoundly affected my belief system, together with a few prayers, lots of meditation, systematic house cleaning to achieve relief from chronic guilt, and immersion in trying to help others for free and for fun. Like the subjects of the books above, Morrie, Viktor Frankel and Gerald Jampolsky, I have discovered that Love is a state of being that, just for today, makes this earth experience a happy moment in the journey of my soul. Greg was right in saying "existence is not living." Love is. Chuck