2025 July 15 Every day is a gift

You can see the original Facebook LIVE here.

Hi, this is Jim Cranston from 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com, the podcast and website about reimagining your life. Thanks for joining me today to talk about remembering the good things that happen every day.

Tonight we'll be talking about how life tries to give us little hints—which we talked about last week—but also how sometimes, when things don't go quite as we expect, there may be underlying reasons that help guide us along the way.

Tonight's message is simple. If you look for the good in your life, remember that good times aren't always a guarantee. Sometimes, you just have to persevere when challenges arise. The things that happen in your real life—medical issues, injuries, money problems, unexpected events—are just one little piece of life. And there may be something in there that's good for you to discover.

I have some situations coming up where mobility would definitely be useful. However, life, in its funny little ways, had a learning opportunity for me in mind. Yesterday morning, I broke some bones in my foot—broken clean in half, actually. Not at all how I planned to start my day.

I could've been really angry. But my first reaction, after getting myself out of shock, was to consider what God and nature were trying to tell me.

I hadn't had any large traumas in my foot area, so why did I suddenly get a break? That's a mystery still to be solved. But there were a number of logistical issues that also had to be resolved. However, I'm an engineer. Those sorts of things are always solvable, so that didn't really worry me.

What about my plans over the next few weeks? I didn't change them at all. I see people with physical challenges going through life every single day, and that gave me the confidence to know I could still effectively complete all my plans—with some changes, obviously. This unexpected injury didn't mean everything in my life had to change immediately.

And what about my attitude? I was actually pretty upbeat. Why? Because life gave me a heck of a hint to start being better about exercising. Exercise stimulates bone growth and resiliency. It also made me realize how fortunate I am to live in a place where my doctor's office was able to book me in that afternoon, at another location. I got same-day service on an emergency visit—something much of the world cannot even fathom.

This isn't the first physical injury I've sustained, and each one reminds me how fortunate I've been—and how much worse things could have been. It's a reminder. It's a wake-up call.

It's a reminder every time I do something to be more careful. Sure, I have a little inconvenience, but my work has been amazingly supportive. Thank you to everybody there. And we're under quite the time crunch right now—absolutely no complaints.

How many people do you know who've had nagging health issues, which they ignore, and then end up seriously incapacitated or even perish from them?

This time, I received a high-priority reminder to myself to start playing a far better game of self-care than I have been. And probably, I'll have no likely long-term effects. It's also a huge reminder that every day is precious—and tomorrow is never guaranteed. I had some inconvenience, a lost day or two, and now I'm back on my way through life with only a little change in the circumstances.

Say, for example, I'd been hiking in the mountains—because a lot of places I go have a lot of cliffs. If I'd had that same injury, it could've resulted literally in a fatal fall, just by the change of location.

Which brings us to the overarching topic. Be appreciative when things go well—when things go right—and keep track of those memories.

We all like to complain when things don't go perfectly. It's human nature. As we said, it's called negativity bias. We remember the bad things in an effort to help keep us safe. But there are many positive effects of having some positivity bias in there as well. It helps us tomorrow by reminding us that yesterday wasn't all bad.

Some pretty good things happened. In my case, even though I broke my foot, I discovered the good side of many people. I met some new, super nice folks at the other doctor's office. I realized I had some medical equipment that I had decided not to discard years ago—which turned out to be really helpful.

My dog was wonderfully gentle. My cat slept with me to make sure everything was going okay. Dozens of other positive things happened. I could have just focused on the negative—been mad and annoyed—and I would've been no better off. And probably the healing wouldn't have gone as well either, because I would've been mad, stomping around, tense. Instead, I just went with the flow, and things seemed to be working out really well.

But they didn't just happen. They happened because something bad happened. All those good things that happened—I remembered them, I focused on them. And that's because something that could have been considered bad turned into something that actually was pretty good.

Remember—we're all in control of our feelings. We consciously decide to make that bad thing into a positive thing, to make it into something good in our lives. I decided to look at the lesson and discover what it was trying to teach me—and realized that I can likely reduce the chance of it happening again by being more proactive in my health.

And that's the magic of being conscious about our reaction to events. At first, they may seem out of our control or caused by someone else. But by looking for a reason, we again discover that life is something that happens for us, not to us.

That doesn't mean it's perfect—and sometimes it may be far from perfect—but we can usually discover, perhaps in retrospect, that many of our biggest challenges are also our biggest breakthroughs.

Your homework tonight is quite simple. Look back upon your day and try to remember three things—no matter how small—that either helped you, made you smile, or in some way brought something positive into your life.

And remember, they may have started out seeming like bad things, but ultimately they turned into something good. Extra points if you also take the time to write them down. And tomorrow, start your day by thanking the universe, God, or whomever you believe in, for bringing you those positive things yesterday—and just start your life off on a positive foot.

As always, please remember that there are many things going on in the world that are real challenges—big challenges. There are many wars and areas of political and social unrest throughout the world.

Please check our updated page of links at UKR7.com. That's a list of links to support the people in Ukraine. Or you can support people throughout the world with World Central Kitchen at WCK.org. This is a great organization. They do work throughout the world. 

There are many other international organizations, national organizations, organizations in your neighborhood. All these people are doing things to help other people.

And if you're just not in the mindset or financial position to donate—then remember that we can all help somebody, just in a little way, just by simply thinking outside of ourselves.

Just saying hello to somebody—saying "Hi, hope you have a good day," "You look good today," whatever it is—just some small compliment, acknowledging that that person even exists. Just that little bit can make somebody's day so much better—far better than the effort you have to put into it. Remember, one of the best ways to care for ourselves is to care for others.

Thank you for stopping by. If you found something interesting or useful, please pass it along. Please subscribe, hit that like button. If not, please drop me a comment as to what you'd like to hear. 

Have a great week. Remember to live the life that you dream of, because that's the path to true contentment. Love and encouragement to everyone. See you next week on 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com.