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Qanita Mahmood, Ghana
The line stretches long under the dim glow of early morning.
It’s 4 a.m., and hundreds of people stand shivering in the biting cold outside a store, where the latest model of the iPhone sits on the shelves. You can almost hear the hush, the shared impatience, the unspoken hope that this will finally be it.
The moment the doors open, the crowd surges, people push and shove, desperate to get their hands on it.
But within months, the excitement fades. The phone becomes just another item tossed into pockets or bags. Soon, whispers of the next model begin to float through conversations. The same people who believed that this purchase would satisfy them now long for the next upgrade.
But this moment isn’t just about a phone. It’s a mirror to something deeper within us, our constant, restless hunger for more. We live in a world that convinces us that happiness is always just ahead, in the next achievement, the next purchase, the next version of ourselves. No matter what we gain, what we own, or what we accomplish, there’s always a quiet ache that follows.
That feeling of not quite enough.
Why?
Because somewhere along the way, we’ve lost the art of gratitude.
The Mirage of Next
Maybe it starts when you glance at a colleague, a friend, or someone a few steps ahead. You imagine their life; a higher salary, fewer restrictions, more respect. You tell yourself, If I could just get there… I’d finally feel settled.
So, you chase.
You stay late.
You give up weekends.
You carry the pressure silently, hoping it’ll all be worth it.
And then, one day, it happens. You get the promotion. There’s pride, relief, joy. It’s electric, like standing at the top of a long hill and finally catching your breath.
But then…
The emails pile up. The expectations grow.
The salary’s better, sure, but so is the stress.
Before long, you glance up the ladder again, and see someone seemingly freer. And just like that, a new goal takes shape and the cycle begins again.
Every time we reach what we thought was the thing, the joy is real, but fleeting. Soon, a new hunger takes its place.
A new “if only.”
This isn’t random. It’s part of a pattern, what psychologists call the hedonic treadmill; a metaphor for the idea that after positive or negative life events, our happiness tends to return to a baseline level.
The thrill becomes ordinary, and once it does, our eyes shift, scanning for the next high. And it’s not just the longing that drains us, it’s the comparing. The constant measuring of our worth against others.
The feeling that someone else’s life is the standard we need to meet.
In that endless race, we don’t just lose our peace, we lose our direction.
We stop asking why we’re running, focusing only on how far we still have to go.
The path ahead blurs. The soul grows quiet.
Yet we keep moving, afraid of what it might mean to stop.
If we feel like strangers to ourselves, perhaps it’s because somewhere along the way, we traded pieces of who we were for who we thought we had to become.
The Holy Qur’an so clearly warns:
“Mutual rivalry in seeking worldly increase diverts you from God.” (102:2)
And similarly, the Bible asks us, piercingly:
“Will you gain anything if you win the whole world but lose your life?” (Matthew 16:26)
We rush, we reach, we repeat. Yet a part of us remains hollow.
Not because we don’t have enough, but because we’ve forgotten what enough looks like.
The treadmill never stops …
unless we choose to step off it.
The Overlooked Miracles
We speak of not having enough.
But maybe, we haven’t truly looked at what we already have.
How often do we pause to think about the organs inside us; working silently, tirelessly, every single moment? Your kidneys, for instance. They filter 180 litres of blood every single day, without ever asking for credit.
Yet the moment one kidney fails, life changes forever.
According to the International Society of Nephrology, kidney disease affects over 850 million people worldwide.
For those whose kidneys no longer function properly, treatment becomes grueling. Most rely on in-centre hemodialysis, three sessions a week, each lasting around four hours.
And for some, there is the hope of a transplant. But kidneys aren’t bought off shelves. They are waited for, prayed for, sometimes for years. And often, they don’t come in time.
In United States alone, at any given time, nearly 90,000 people are waiting for a kidney transplant, and 11 people die every day waiting for a kidney.
And that’s just one organ.
Think about your vision. Your heart. Your ability to walk, to sleep, to breathe without tubes or pills or machines. There are people right now who would give anything for what you have on autopilot.
The Holy Qur’an calls our attention to this very truth. It doesn’t merely instruct us to be thankful; it reminds us that our very existence is wrapped in blessings, tailored precisely to our needs.
“And He gave you all that you wanted of Him; and if you try to count the favours of Allah, you will not be able to number them. Verily, man is very unjust, very ungrateful.” (14:35)
Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian (as), the Promised Messiah and Founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community urged us to reflect deeply on this very truth:
“It is man’s choice to be grateful or not, but if he possesses a rightly-inclined nature and ponders over it, he will find that all the faculties-overt and covert-have been granted to him by Allah the Exalted alone, and they are fully under His control. He can amplify them out of gratitude or diminish them in an instant out of ingratitude.” (Malfuzat Volume X, page 495)
Such repetition is no accident; it invites us to pause, reflect, and truly absorb the magnitude of blessings that surround us every day.
When we begin to see even our routine experiences as blessings; our heartbeat, our breath, the sunrise, we start to realise that gratitude isn’t a reaction to extraordinary moments, it’s a way of experiencing the ordinary with reverence.
But because pain doesn’t knock on our door, we forget what peace feels like.
Because we haven’t known the absence of a thing, we fail to cherish its presence.
And in the blur of wanting more, we miss the quiet miracles already unfolding inside us and around us. Gratitude begins here; not with grand speeches or social media posts, but with a whisper of awareness: “I have more than I realise.”
It’s the moment you look at your hands, your heartbeat, your lungs and acknowledge:
“I have enough.”
Maybe not perfect.
Maybe not flashy.
But enough.
The Hidden Riches of What We Already Own
We rush through life, often overlooking the everyday blessings that surround us.
How often do we truly see the people closest to us?
How often do we simply sit with them, without distraction, and just be?
We live in a world that convinces us to search for more, but in the chase for all these fleeting “more’s,” we lose sight of the incredible riches already nestled in our lives.
We assume they’ll always be there. But what if, one day, they’re gone?
Imagine waking up tomorrow and realising you’ll never hear your mother’s voice again. Imagine realising you will never get to text your friend again.
Imagine the crushing weight of that loss, the sharp sting of regret for the moments you didn’t savour, the words you didn’t say, the times you didn’t listen.
In that moment, we realise: the very people we thought would always be there are the ones we failed to truly appreciate.
Leo Buscaglia, an American author and motivational speaker, once said:
“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”
And tragically, those may be the very riches we leave behind in the dust; unnoticed, until they’re no longer within reach.
We chase promotions, polish résumés, and tell ourselves, “I’m doing it for them.” While we work harder to provide for the people we love, they might just be wishing for an uninterrupted evening, a shared meal, or a few minutes of undivided presence.
What good is all we are building if those we are building it for begin to feel like strangers?
Gratitude begins when we stop to see;
Not just what we have earned, but who has stood with us through the storms.
Not just what we lack, but who we might lose if we do not slow down.
The Light That Never Fades
What does gratitude look like in a warzone?
It looks like a father, war-worn, saving his last piece of bread for his child.
A mother, home in ruins, still praying at dawn, her faith louder than the crashing walls around her.
A child, finding joy in the smallest of things amid the rubble.
It looks like the unwavering words of the people saying, ‘Hasbunallaahu wa ni’mal wakeel,’ i.e. ‘Sufficient for us is Allah, and an excellent Guardian is He.’ (3:174), when faced with yet another burden too heavy to bear.
In Palestine, where homes are reduced to rubble and futures remain uncertain, gratitude takes on a form few of us could ever truly fathom.
Amidst the chaos, the rubble, and the wreckage, they find something to hold on to. It’s no longer about having more. It’s about holding on to what’s left, with hands raised in prayer and hearts firm with resilience.
Their resilience is not built on wealth, but on worship. Not on possessions, but on prayer. And in that, there is a kind of wealth we rarely understand.
The Bible reminds us: “Be thankful in all circumstances,” (1 Thessalonians 5:18)
And the Holy Prophet Muhammad (sa), showed us how to live that truth. He said:
“Strange are the ways of a believer for there is good in every affair of his and this is not the case with anyone else except in the case of a believer for if he has an occasion to feel delight, he thanks (God), thus there is a good for him in it, and if he gets into trouble and shows resignation (and endures it patiently), there is a good for him in it.” (Sahih Muslim 2999)
In this, we find the perspective that gratitude does not just appear; it is a choice, a strength, a quiet act of worship in both ease and adversity.
And so, gratitude is not just a response to comfort. It is the strength found in the hardest moments. The kind of strength that allows the heart to remain steady, even when everything around it begins to fall apart.
If gratitude can survive in warzones, it can surely take roots in our hearts as well.
The Lens We Choose To Look Through
Life is a journey, much like driving down a road. As we move forward, we have a choice in the way we see things around us.
We can glance at those walking under the scorching sun or the labourers hustling to make ends meet. In that moment, we feel a deep sense of gratitude, for the comfort we often overlook, for the little privileges we hold but take for granted.
Or, we can turn our gaze to the luxury cars gliding by, feeling that familiar tug of longing. That moment of discontent, a silent voice whispering, “if only I had that.”
The Holy Prophet Muhammad (sa) said:
“Look at those who stand at a lower level than you but don’t look at those who stand at a higher level than you, for that is better-suited that you do not disparage Allah’s favours.” (Sahih Muslim 2963c)
When we look above, our peace begins to slip. But when we do look below, not out of pity, but out of perspective; we begin to see the world more clearly:
- Around 733 million people faced hunger in 2023, equivalent to one in eleven people globally and one in five in Africa.
- Between 1.6 billion and 3 billion people currently lack adequate housing, and at least 330 million experience absolute homelessness.
- In 2024 alone, 123.2 million people were forcibly displaced from their homes due to war, persecution, or disaster.
These numbers aren’t just figures; they’re lived realities for millions. And when we allow them to touch our hearts, they recalibrate our sense of enough.
The lens we choose to look through determines how we experience life. We can choose to focus on the beauty of what we have, or we can be distracted by the things we think we lack.
Gratitude sharpens that lens, and comparison blurs it.
In a world obsessed with what’s next, gratitude is the subtle rebellion of the soul. It is the act of saying: “I am enough, and I have enough.”
The Holy Qur’an offers us a profound promise:
“If you are grateful, I will, surely, bestow more favours on you” (14:8)
This doesn’t mean that gratitude will magically bring more wealth or possessions. It means gratitude amplifies what we already possess. It turns the little into plenty, ordinary into extraordinary, and moments into miracles.
So, what if gratitude is not just a virtue or an emotion; but a way of walking through life?
A quiet weapon, against despair, against greed, against stress, and against the ache of always wanting more?
In a world that whispers “more is better”, gratitude boldly reminds us; “Enough is more than enough.”
The doors of that store may open again, the lines may stretch longer, and the chase may continue. But maybe someone, quietly and bravely, will choose to step off the treadmill, and whisper not with regret, but with peace, “This is enough.”
About the Author: Qanita Mahmood, daughter of Sajid Mahmood Butter, serves as the General Secretary for Lajna and Nasirat in Jamia Ahmadiyya International and Mankessim Circuit, Ghana. She is dedicated to studying religious literature.
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