Being grateful is always appropriate.
Please discuss. How does this play out in life?
I’ll start us out. Thanksgiving is a day we celebrate our blessings. We try to be extra nice and pleasant to each other and we talk about being thankful for what we have. But this holiday is only one day each year. What about the other 364 days?
Some days it is easy to be grateful. Things, at least mostly, are going our way. It is natural to feel gratitude on these halcyon days. Other days are an uphill struggle. Nothing seems to work out well; it feels like we’re cursed.
Today’s message reminds me that even on my worst days, there are things for which to be thankful—being alive; having clean clothes to wear; not being hungry or thirsty; having safe shelter; and perhaps poignant in these pandemic times, being healthy. If one or more of these conditions are true for me, I can consider I’m having a good day. The more I can recognize and be grateful for the basic blessing of life, the happier I will be.
How about you? What part does gratitude play in your life?
For a more in-depth exploration of how gratitude improves our lives, please see Chapter 10, Why Gratitude Brings Us More in my book The Sharing: The Owner’s Manual for Being Human.