“Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”
- Source
- Sketches by Boz
- Date
- 1836
Meaning of “Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man…”
The sentence does not deny bereavement or hardship; it redirects attention toward the good that remains present while acknowledging that every life also contains misfortune.
Where does it come from?
Sketches by Boz, “Characters,” Chapter II, “A Christmas Dinner,” verified against Project Gutenberg #882 and the scan-backed 1836 Volume I transcription on Wikisource. “Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some” appears immediately after Dickens asks readers to look at their children and explicitly imagines an empty seat where a child has died. The sentence therefore places gratitude beside bereavement and remembered loss rather than denying grief; it is narrator prose, not modern clinical grief-treatment guidance.
