A couple of years ago, there was a power failure in Amsterdam.
When I woke up at 7 am, I noticed that I had received a text message from a colleague informing me about it.
I live in Amsterdam, and I thought that the power breakage would only be in a few streets.
I got up and turned on the heater so that it would be a bit warmer in my room, but It stayed cold.
I turned the switch for the light, but it was still dark.
Then I went to the bathroom and turned on the warm water faucet, but I got cold water.
Since I live in a studio, it was easy for me to find my way around in the dark, as it wasn't huge.
I looked through my window.
And that's when I saw that besides the headlights of the cars passing by, it was completely dark outside.
I went back to bed for a few minutes. Oh no! I thought. How am I supposed to get to the office?
Well, actually, getting to the office was no problem, but I had to find my clothes and the pathway to the bus stop in the dark. That could be a problem.
And, there was no warm water, I always love to take a shower in the morning.
After 15 minutes, I decided to find some clothes, along with a towel, with the help of my flashlight app on my phone.
Then I would go to the office to take a shower in the public bathroom.
I took my towel off the heater and noticed that it was warm. The heater was working!
I tried the light switch. That worked, and I also had warm water again.
You have no idea how glad I was to find out that everything was working.
All of this brought me back to gratitude.
Being grateful for the little, often in my eyes, small things that I take for granted.
Grateful for the heater, to keep my house warm when it's cold outside.
Grateful for the light, so I can see in the dark.
Grateful for the warm water, so that I can take a refreshing shower every morning.
On my way to the office, I read that not all houses got power back on again.
And that made my day extra grateful for the fact that I already had everything I need and could use it whenever I wanted.