Grateful Heart, Grateful Soul

As the year is drawing to a close, when you look at how far you have come, you will know that there are lots of things that you should be grateful for. Many people started the year just as you did, but not everyone has made it alive this far. The people that have gone also had plans for the year but still they left, but here you are, alive and well. If this does not form a fundamental reason to be grateful, then you need to think again. If you think of how blessed you have been, even the blessings of life, you will have a grateful heart.

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It is true that you may have experienced some "anyhowness" and some unpleasant situations in the course of the year, but it does not override the fact that you have also been blessed beyond measures. You have to learn to start counting your blessings instead of your supposed losses and see how blessed you are. Many of the things you have now are the sincere desires of a lot of people who cannot even afford them, yet you are not grateful for them. When you develop the heart of gratitude, you will naturally be happy and joyous.

One of the reasons why some people are sad and depressed is because they feel the world has left them behind or that life is not fair to them, or that they have not achieve what they want to. Yet they forget that there are many things that they have that they do not even know are blessings. It takes your act of thinking well for you to be able to be grateful enough. The truth is, what some people even call losses might just be desires that have not yet manifested, but it does not mean that they will not come. Keep you thoughts focused on what you have received and be grateful for them, so that other blessings will come.

Being grateful for what you have also removes undue pressure and desperation from you, because it reassures you that you are blessed. You cannot have everything in the world, in fact no one has it, so be thankful for what you have. Being grateful does not mean that you should not be hopeful for something better, but it removes the act of desperation from you. You have to understand that the good things that you have received are not your right or entitlement but privileges. You have to remove the mentality of entitlement, so that you can have more of the heart of gratitude.

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When someone does something good for you, even if it may not be up to what you expect, but you should appreciate it and be grateful. What if they never did it at all, what will you do? It may even be the simple gratitude that you express that may trigger more acts of goodness from the person. This is why I believe that for you to see bigger things, you have to be thankful for the less. When you are grateful for what you have today, it will position you to receive something bigger in the future. You also need to lower the expectations you place on people and on things, so that you will learn to be grateful even for the little. Remember that no one, not even life and nature, owes you anything. So in the real sense, what you receive is a function of favour and not of merit.

One of the things that I have learnt in life is that there is nothing that is too small or insignificant to be grateful for. It is the value that you attach to what you have that will prompt the heart of gratitude within you. If you cannot be thankful for the little, then there is also a possibility that you may not also be thankful when you have received much, if you will. Gratitude should not be a function of the size of what you have but the heart and the value you attach to it. Everyday you live, you will see countless reasons that have a heart of gratitude. That you went out and came back safely should also be a thing of gratitude. The same route you took safely may have ended some other people in the past. In everything, and for everything, you should learn to be grateful.

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