Look out the window or step outside for a moment or two. Look at something, anything, in the natural environment—the sky, a cloud, a tree, a patch of earth. Soften your gaze, letting your eyes see each thing as if you have never seen it before. Be a beginner. Be an explorer. Let your curiosity about that thing grow. Now imagine that this is the very first and the very last time you will ever experience this gift. Absorb the impressions as fully as possible with all your senses and let yourself feel gratitude.

The Hebrew word dayenu, meaning “it is enough,” captures the essence of living in gratitude for life. To live dayenu as a way of life is to be ready to embrace the mystery of the moment, fully, and then let it go. In this moment, all is a gift. One breath is precious, one smile, one day of seeing the sun. If there is no next moment, this attitude allows one to die freely, happily, with deep appreciation for all that has been and is.

The misery here is quite terrible; and yet, late at night... I often walk with a spring in my step along the barbed wire. And then time and again, it soars straight from my heart—I can't help it, that's just the way it is, like some elementary force the feeling that life is glorious and magnificent, and that one day we shall be building a whole new world. —Etty Hillesum, 1942, Dutch jew, who died at Auschwitz

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