Editorials, blogs, newspapers, coffee house discussions, no matter where you turn to, people are screaming about their version of what’s wrong with Pakistan. Yes! It is indeed a country with thousands of problems, it is indeed a mess right now, 99.9% of the things are going bad, but, why don’t I see anybody talking about the 0.1% of goodness that we still see around us.
I am an average person whom you don’t have to listen to, but I would request a few minutes of your time while I express what is still good and commendable around me. If we don’t show gratitude towards whatever is still good, we will lose that pretty soon as well.
“The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.”
- I am grateful to the people who clean the streets of Pakistan. I know that people criticize you incessantly but I have seen you work hard in scorching heat and I cannot thank you enough for keeping our city clean.
- I commend all the organizations that are genuinely working hard to provide free education. I have met people studying in these schools and getting opportunities they could only dream about.
- I am grateful to the volunteers who still direct traffic in parts of Pakistani cities wearing a jacket that says “I own Pakistan”. I don’t know which group or organization they belong to, but I think they are doing a wonderful job.
- I feel blessed that we still have elders around who are practically strangers to us but still dispense wisdom and kindness when we are in trouble.
- I want to thank the 90 year old lady I met, running an orphanage in Karachi. I also want to thank another old lady who walked miles to donate Re. 1 to that orphanage. That’s all she could afford.
- I want to thank our security forces and police.
- I am thankful for the brief yet memorable moments following our recent sports achievements. Those moments brought with them unity, gratitude and celebration.
- I will forever be grateful to those school teachers who think teaching values is more important than teaching a generic syllabus. We might be able to pay you for your work but we can never pay you for the nobility of your profession.
- I want to thank those who still provide free food to people. No matter what motive you have, it always eliminates hunger and feeds poor.
- I know the roads in my city are broken and full of puddles, but I am happy that they take me to places I couldn’t go otherwise.
- I am grateful for people who build houses. I know they only want to fill their pockets but they still provide housing to people who would otherwise sleep on streets. I know cities where hundreds of thousands of people sleep on footpaths.
- The unity we demonstrated after the October 2005 earthquake was extra ordinary. Hat’s off to the thousands of volunteers, contributors and well wishers who made us realize we still have a heart.
I am not a writer but I still hope you can see the sentiment behind my unstructured sentences and linguistic inadequacies. Eckhart said: “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice.”
What are you thankful for?
We all are thankful and very humbly grateful to ALmighty ALLAH, Rahim, Karim, who gave us this Pak land to live independently.
And we are thankful to the Father Of the Nation for making efforts to achieve this.
We are thankful to all Pakistanis who have served and are serving this nation with full dedication and all sincereity .
Like you have said! I would like to show my gratitude to the armed forces who are fighting against all odds to secure a safer tomorrow for US! Also I would like to thank individuals such as Nadeem Paracha and Farukh Pitafi who defy the perceived populist mindset and take on the “Taliban Apologists” heads on.
Recently I happened to see as an email attachment an article on Pakistan in “Life” Magazine dating from 1947-48 in which Karachi was described as a “one camel town”. We should be grateful for how far we have come since then.
I love Pakistan,I feel proud of my country:
a true paradise in this world:
Arabian Sea,
K-2, Boltoro Glaciers,
Plains,Mountains,Deserts,
Year round sun light,
Nuclear power,
Noble prize winner,
Hockey-squash-cricket champs,
Polo playing at high altitudes,
Harvard,Princeton,Yale,Cambridge,Oxford,
Beautiful people from a land of dreams of our ancestors.
I am a proud Pakistani ,waving our flag with honour !
I appreciate the initiative taken by Mr Bajwa.
Beauty lies in the balance and in order to keep a balance it is good to look at the bright side of the picture too.
I love my country and I am a great admirer of many achievements that we have made.
There are many things excellent going on all the time in my country which invite us to find out the secret of their goodness and to apply the same in other spheres of life.
Say for example impressed by their excellent standard of punctuality I find it quite comfortable to travel by a private bus service namely Daewo running from Karachi to Lahore. I am equally, rather more impressed by the service of a Public Sector Organization that is Suit Southern against whom I rarely heard any complaint. Although it is a public service organization and deals with all classes of the society mostly the common man there are no stories of corruption or red tapeism, etc. against it. I also hear many people talking about National Highway Police with full appreciation as their behavior makes one realize being a citizen of the civilized society…..Kept away from politics we have one of the best Air Force Navy and and the Land Forces in the world, of which I am proud of. There are wonderful educational institutions like NED, IBA of Karachi University Governemt College Lahore, LUMS to site a few……
We have our weaknesses and our grudging about them may be taken as a strong desire to turn them into strength….We started from scratch and we had hard times throughout oor short history but we are very much there among the polity of nations as an Atomic. I find my country and nation doing much better when compared to other countries and nations with longer histories greater potentials and many more resources…. I am confident that inspite of all the odds ,like Urdu there is bright future for Pakistan….Let us join hands to keep the bright side of the picture in our minds to give us courage and confidence and hope for a better future…