Essential skills in life: Gratitude

“If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.” ― Meister Eckhart

Multumesc! Grazie! Merci! Gracias! Obrigado! धन्यवाद! спасибо! bedankt! 谢谢! Dzięki! Dank!köszönöm! 感謝! mihi! dėkoju! شكر! Thank you!

You probably guessed already, the words above all mean one emotion: Gratitude. Such simple words means so much. Thank you! But being grateful is much more that saying Thank you!.

Gratitude is a state of mind. It’s a choice. You can choose to be grateful or ungrateful. But I will try to show you in the words that will follow that it’s a much better choice to be grateful for what you have in your life, rather than being ungrateful.

Because it’s a state of mind, you can tune into this state whenever you life. Just like a TV and a radio. You hold the remote in your hand and you can choose on what to be grateful or not. You can be grateful for anything in your life, even the bad experiences.

Why is important to be grateful?

It makes us happier. Why? When you are grateful you experience the joy of having things to be grateful. So being grateful for something you have will make you appreciate that thing and thus make you more happier.

It improves relationships. Let me ask you a question? If you would have one friend, and he is grateful for everything that you give him, for every experience that you guys share, how would you feel about that person? But what if that friend, instead of being grateful for the relationship that you have, and the experience that you share, he always complains and he is an overall bastard. How would you feel about him? Would you still be friends?

It makes us healthier. And I will just leave you with the picture below

Image source

You become more optimistic. We usually feel gratitude over good things that happen to us. And when we make a habit of being grateful, we see the world in a more positive light.

How to practice gratitude?

One way of practicing this state of mind is to find 5 minutes during the day and say the things you are grateful for. You can do this in the morning or in the evening or maybe both periods of the day. And try each day to be grateful for different things. Don’t say each day that you are grateful for your family. Is your family the only good thing in your life?

While I was researching for this post I found several sites mentioning keeping a Gratitude Journal. I think this could be an interesting idea to try out. While each day you say your thanks, you write them in your journal as well. And try to be specific about the things you are grateful for. Don’t write general things, write specific things that happened to you on that day. Maybe someone opens a door for you when you were with both hands full or maybe you just found a coin on the street.

If you didn’t practice this state of mind in the past, you will probably think: 8“But my life is so bad, I have nothing to be grateful for.”* Really? Not even one little thing? What about the fact that you are alive. Is that a good thing to be grateful for? What about the fact that you have a roof over your head, you ate a good meal and many other things that you should be grateful, but you take for granted.

Look well at the things around you and be grateful for everything that you have in your life. You don’t know when you might lose them.

“Be thankful for everything that happens in your life; it’s all an experience.” ― Roy T. Bennett

Image source: Pixabay

---

This is Day 8 of the 30 days writing challenge during January 2017 launched by @dragosroua. If you want to join the challenge, here's the introductory article.

---

Essential skills in life is a series of articles regarding skills that I consider everyone should try to develop them. Some of them I have, some of them I'm working on. Please follow me @sstefan if you want to check the next post of the series.