MULTIMEDIA-ENGLISH
Gratitude
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6:10
Video page URL
https://multimedia-english.com/videos/esl/gratitude-3933
Description

A Moving Art original short. This inspirational video was well responded at TED conferences and filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg motivates those around him as happiness is revealed. Spoken word and music montage created and composed by Gary Malkin. Narration written and spoken by Brother David Steindl-Rast.


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Transcript

“When I watch TV it’s just some shows that you just are to pretend, and when you explore you get more imagination than you already had. And, um, when you get more imagination it makes you want to go deeper in so you can get more and see beautiful things. Like it could- the path, if it’s a path, it could lead to a beach or something, and it could be beautiful.”

You think this is just another day in your life. It’s not just another day, it’s the one day that is given to you today. It’s given to you – it’s a gift. It’s the only gift that you have right now and the only appropriate response is gratefulness.

If you do nothing else but to cultivate that response to the great gift that this unique day is. If you learn to respond as if it were the first day in your life and the very last day then you will have spent this day very well.

Begin by opening your eyes and be surprised that you have eyes you can open. The incredible array of colours that is constantly offered to us for pure enjoyment. Look at the sky. We so rarely look at the sky. We so rarely note how different it is from moment to moment with the clouds coming and going. We just think of the weather and even the weather we don’t think of all the many nuances of weather, we just think of good weather and bad weather. This day right now, this unique weather, maybe a kind that will never exactly in that form come again. The formation of clouds in the sky will never be the same that is right now.

Open your eyes, look at that. Look at the faces of the people you meet. Each one has an incredible story behind their face.  A story that you could never fully fathom. Not only their own story but the story of their ancestors. They all go back so far. And in this present moment, on this day all the people you meet, all that life from generations and from so many places over the world, flows together and meets you here like a life giving water if you only open your heart and drink.

Open your heart to the incredible gifts that civilization gives to us. You flip a switch and there is electric light. You turn a faucet and there is warm water and cold water. And drinkable water. It’s a gift that millions and millions in the world will never experience. These are just a few of an enormous number of gifts to which we can open our heart.
 
And so I wish you would open your heart to all these blessings and let them flow through you. That everyone who you will meet on this day will be blessed by you, just by your eyes, by your smile, by your touch, just by your presence. Let the gratefulness overflow into blessing all around you. Then it will really be a good day.