The Garden of Gratitude

I am writing this blog while I sit in a quiet room on the 5th floor of a hotel. I am working on a table with a beautiful mirror in front of me, there’s a lamp besides my laptop which is beautiful even when sitting there doing nothing. From my left, the natural light is flooding in the room through a glass wall; filling everything with a gentle brightness, filtered through the white curtains. My feet are on the carpet that feels so soft that I just wanna lie down on it.

There’s a blue linen sofa besides the glass wall, the type which we see in the movies on which people lay down on when they speak to their therapist. The walls around me are off white with one wall that’s beautifully beige, the color tone, the texture. There’s a painting on the beige wall, it has a minaret with abstract art to support it and I don’t know who gifted it to the hotel or if they bought it, because that has been made with love.

The bed I have been sleeping in for the past two nights just hugs me, pulling me into sweet slumber, it’s so clean and fresh, I can smell the fabric and feel how gently it touches my skin. The room is filled with pretty lamps designed in their own unique ways but coming together perfectly with everything in the room. The room service brings me coffee and fresh fruits without me even asking for it.

Four days ago I turned 33.

I have been sitting with gratitude in my chest. I just joined a government organization in Saudi Arabia, working on one of the most iconic projects. The situation almost feels philosophical. My father wanted to work in the railways in India when he was young but he didn’t have the money to bribe the hiring authority with the money they asked for that job. But now, I am working with the Railway in a country that is growing rapidly. And I can see my father being happy when I show my family the things I have been doing lately, things like where I work, the hotel my company booked for me. No one in my family stayed in a 5 star hotel before, so it’s something abnormally amazing for me.

I have heard that in heaven, your age would be 33 no matter when you died. And I just hit 33 and my life has been better than ever before. A reputable job with good money, a helpful and kind team, a boss who is really smart but patient, one who is investing his time and energy into my growth, my 50 day streak with writing, my tweets getting engagement, even if little, while I was struggling to get 20 impressions a month ago.

If I had to define gratitude from what I have been feeling for the past few days? It feels like your back is against a tree with shade, you’re surrounded by a garden and the breeze kisses your skin ever so gently, you can hear the birds, you can hear the leaves and the grass rustling, you can see all the different flowers just waving in the wind. This feeling is gratitude.

On my first morning here, I was at the breakfast lounge and sitting there while the waiters were taking the orders, I was watching all the different people that filled the lounge. There were businessmen in expensive suits, there were gorgeous flight attendants, there were pilots with grey hair, women with designer clothes. They looked like artists that weren’t starving. There were families that looked like sitting here in this lounge was like sitting in a shawarma joint that I frequent. It was so normal for them. And there was me, a guy who is here because the company booked the hotel for him.

The feeling was strange. I was happy to just be there among the people who live lives of abundance, they live in this world that is beautiful. Then when the waiter walked up to me and asked me my order, I had no clue what to order. I asked him what do they have, he just said we have everything. I was more lost now, so I just told him that I do not know what to order, can you recommend something? He asked are you looking for a heavy breakfast or a light one? I am a light eater so I said lightish. He smiled and brought me steak, hummus with garnishing, just that aroma made me hungry, olive oil poured over it, there were pickles and potatoes that were spicy and sweet at the same time and he brought me a juice that felt filling and healthy, I couldn’t identify the ingredients. I was like a happy fool, eating messily like I usually do and watching the etiquettes of all these people and how elegant they were.

My peace in this garden of gratitude was interrupted, not abruptly, but it was sinisterly slow, like a snake slithering in the grass. You can’t make out what sound it is upon hearing it first, but it becomes obvious in a few seconds. A series of questions slowly slithered towards me. Why is this so extraordinary to me and so normal for them? What do I lack that these people have? How do I find it out and how do I get there, where this is normal for me?

I have been practicing discipline for fifty days. The job, the writing, the slow improvement in my mental health. I can see the results starting to show. Sitting in that breakfast lounge, I realized I had just had an appetizer. And it unlocked a hunger I didn’t know I had.

Not for the hotel. Not for the suits or the designer clothes.

For the kind of life where showing up fully, every day, with everything you have, is what brought you to the room. Not luck. Not a company booking. Your own work.

In two days, I leave this beautiful garden and go back to the life that awaits me, the fast days, work spilling into my personal time, the feeling of always being in a restaurant’s kitchen at peak hours, the balancing of relationships. In my case, my own relationship with me. But I would be walking back into my regular life with the hunger that was born out of the appetizer these past few days have been.

The hunger that says success is not negotiable now.