A Nice Warm Home--A Paragraph a Day

My wife and I went for a walk in the cold a couple of hours ago, and it was wonderful.  It isn't a terribly cold day, and though there was a wind, it wasn't a terribly cold or heavy one.  We had a very nice walk, and even better, when we got home, we were greeted by warmth and coziness, something that I never cease to be grateful for.  It would be very easy, of course, to take such a thing for granted, to assume that the cozy home is there for us always, that we somehow deserve it--even though literally billions of people on this planet don't have such a thing.  I appreciate the fact that I appreciate the warmth, too, especially when I see what's just happened in Turkey and Syria and I think about what those people must be going through.  Many of them have lost everything, including loved ones, and I still have a comfortable, warm home to sit in and write these words.  I hope that I never lose the ability to appreciate that which I have--even those things that seem rather mundane or normal.  We all have many blessings in our lives, and it's our choice whether we appreciate them or not, whether we allow them to enrich our perspective or allow ourselves to grow jaded and unappreciative.  It really is up to each one of us.