Gratitude

Ok, I know you hear it all the time, “have an attitude of gratitude” and you think you have nothing to be thankful for. Or maybe you find yourself generally negative or just “blah”; let’s talk about why it is important to actually live life with a mindset of being grateful and thankful. Sometimes, the reason we struggle with being grateful is that we are stuck on ourselves. Yup! It’s true, we tend to think about what’s not working, especially here in the so-called Western World where things are so easily gotten and basic necessities are not hard to come by. We tend to quickly notice what’s not working versus noticing what is working and giving thanks for that. You wake up, roll out of bed, make your tea or coffee, flip a switch, the light comes on, maybe turn on the news (which means you have access to a TV or the internet), you run your faucet, water comes right out, hot or cold, you have clothes to wear (even if it’s only a few, right?). These things happen without us thinking about it most of the time, but there are people, right here on this side of the world- I won’t bring up other countries who don’t have those luxuries. Something as simple as the ability to breathe for oneself is something to be grateful for. Maybe if we step outside of ourselves more often than we do, we will find something to be grateful for. 

Struggling with where to start, and what to do? Start by thinking of what you want your life to look like serving others. What do you see missing in the world? What do you want to fix? Write them all down, see if there are any overarching themes, then break back down, start locally, start with one person, one organization, one step at a time, then scale up as you go.