Living Grateful, the Mongolian Way

In Mongolia, gratitude is not something we wait for in grand moments.
It rises quietly from the small, everyday mercies that shape our lives.

I think about my mother coming home from work, dust on her boots, tired from the long day. She would step through the doorway of our yurt, look at me, and smile. Somehow the entire space felt brighter. Not because the lamp burned stronger, but because love has a way of lighting a room from the inside out.

Gratitude lived there.

And then there were the neighbors. The ones who did not ask why you were walking alone through the steppe. They simply slowed their motorcycle and said, “Get on.” Wind in your face, laughter caught in your throat, and the kind of companionship that needed no explanation.

Gratitude lived there too.

My uncles never said, “Let me help you.” They just picked up the axe and chopped wood before winter settled in. In Mongolia, care often arrives unannounced. It does not come as a lecture or a lesson, but as a quiet act of tending to what keeps a family warm.

And again, gratitude lived there.

Even the nights held their own blessings. Lying under a sky so wide it made you feel both small and infinite, watching falling stars streak across the darkness. We never thought about danger then. Comets did not land near us. The universe kept its distance, and we felt held by something larger than ourselves.

Gratitude lived in those star-filled silences.

This is the Mongolian way.
To give thanks not in loud declarations,
but in the soft noticing of what supports us quietly.

A smile at the doorway.
A ride when the road feels long.
Wood chopped before the cold.
A sky that lets you dream without fear.

Life becomes gentler when we learn to see these small moments for what they truly are. They are gifts.

So today, wherever you are, may you find one small thing to be grateful for.
Something simple.
Something steady.
Something that reminds you that you are held, just as I once felt held on the open steppe.

Gratitude does not always arrive with a prayer.
Sometimes it comes as a smile, a hand, a quiet night sky.

And that is enough.

Happy Thanksgiving!

With love,

Oyumaa