Tag Archives: thankful

Gratitude Series: 1. Attitude

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“Gratitude is a currency that we can mint for ourselves, and spend without fear of bankruptcy.” Fred De Witt Van Amburgh

My friend Gillianne has a great way of being optimistic, no matter her situation. Often, when I am about to start a pity party, I remember her saying that we should always have an “attitude of gratitude”. I take a deep breath and change my attitude. Change it to one of gratitude. Gillianne is also the person who taught me to remember always that “it could be far worse”. Thanks, Chica! I am grateful for you!

“Attitude is defined as the posture, action or disposition, the position as indicating an action, feeling or mood.“

Having an attitude of gratitude means, taking the action of being grateful. It begins with the thought ” this could be far worse” and then a review of all that is around, an appreciation for all that is good 

Sometimes I have had to go below the surface to reach the good, particularly when I feel overwhelmed by my circumstance. However, by grace, I can always find that which I can be thankful for or about. That which I can focus on with a disposition of gratitude.

During this current world situation, we are all facing, I want to truly embrace this attitude of gratitude. I want it to become a part of who I am of how I deal with the pressures of the world. I would like gratitude to be my way of being, my attitude to life!

When I review the last few years of my life, I have certainly come a long way. I live a more positive hopeful existence than I did before. My outlook on life is one of hope. I am now aware that though I cannot control life itself, I can control my outlook to life. My outlook to the life I have allows me to manage any situation I find myself in. I realize that my life is finite. It is not a dress rehearsal, and I cannot trade it with any other person, now would I want to. 

When I look at how blessed my life is, how much I have in this life to be thankful for, I am overwhelmed with gratitude. As time does not stand still nor am I able to turn it back for a redo of my life. It is futile for me to spend any time looking back at what could have been. Looking back with regret. Far better use of my time is to focus on now, with gratitude. For all, I am and have.

I challenge you to do the same, look at your life currently and find one or two things that make you feel truly grateful. Focus on that and somehow even the worst of situations become more palatable. Have an attitude (take action) of gratitude.

Gratitude Series

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gratitude: “quality of being thankful”

noun: the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. The word is derived from the Latin word gratus meaning “pleasing, thankful” (Oxford University Press)

In these trying and troubled times, it is very hard to feel thankful or to show any appreciation at all. All we see is how hard things are and what a difficult time we are experiencing. We cannot give in to the negativity we are currently facing. Consequently, we may be better able to forge forward, by taking the following steps;

  1. Stop and take stock of our lives,
  2. Accept that things may be bad right now and, will more than likely get far worse before they get better.
  3. Make a concerted effort, and dig deep inside of ourselves, searching for any positivity we can find
  4. Concentrate on that positivity we find within ourselves and utilise it to re-align our minds
  5. Focus on all the good in our lives, which subsequently allows us to be grateful.

A good focus in these trying times is by showing gratitude. No matter how bad things get, if we take a keen look within ourselves, in an effort of finding something good, we will find it. Something no matter how small, to be thankful for. Focusing on that thing we are thankful for, will allow us to turn our minds from all the negatives, to the positives in our lives.

This should result in us taking a reprieve from wallowing in the negatives in and around our lives. We must be determined to get above our situations. Look critically and recognize all the good happening around us. Making it easier to overcome our current situations, feel better and have the strength to do better. 

I am making great efforts to refocus my energies from the current negative situation to more positive endeavours. I have come up with different ways to show gratitude, by doing a series of articles focusing on gratitude.

The different gratitude’s I will be speaking of in these series, are not the only ones available. I would challenge you to come up with some of your own, that resonate at the frequency of your soul.

Walk with me as I go through the different posts in my series. Feel free to comment and add your ideas of other ways we can all express gratitude.

Keeping up with the Joneses

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As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. John F. Kennedy

Gratitude: according to definition, this is the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.  The origin of the word is Latin Gratus which means to be pleasing, thankful. Interestingly enough in my little research I discovered that the word has been used less and less through the years from 1800’s to 2010. What does that mean, are we less grateful now, or do we just use other words to describe the same thing? Go figure.

I break down the word to great and attitude, though as shown above this is not the true meaning of the word, I think to have gratitude, one must have a great attitude so it is fitting right? My understanding of the word is to be thankful of one’s situation and plight, to pay attention to what you are and have and not to dwell on what you lack.

This brings to mind a saying I heard a lot while growing up “keeping up with the Joneses”, meaning always striving to be more or better than your neighbour.  Unfortunately this is the way that many of us are choosing to live today; some of us are so busy competing with the neighbour, attempting to acquire what the neighbour has, living the life that our neighbour lives, that we lose sight of who we truly are and what we already have.  I don’t believe that it is possible to be happy in a life of “keeping up” because the Jones’s make their decisions based on their own values, what they love, what they are capable of, whilst those “keeping up”  are there making the decisions so as not to be left behind and seem less than the Jones’s.  The choices made; to buy a new car, acquire a new house or take a vacation are not truly governed by your own internal desires and choice, therefore after you have acquired all that enables you to believe you are equal or even superior to the Jones’s  you will find that you will not enjoy it.  You are left empty trying to live someone else’s life and attempting to attain someone else’s dreams; completely unfulfilling to you.  Bringing me to wonder, when you are so busy “keeping up with the Joneses” who is living your life? Fulfilling your destiny? What a sad state of existence.

Having gratitude is about accepting your situation and being thankful for all that you have, this does not mean complacency nor is it to encourage you to wallow in mediocrity, no, it is  in my opinion more about looking around you, taking stock of who you are and what have accomplished and appreciating that.  No matter how little it is, consider it a step towards fulfilling your destiny.  It should serve as encouragement for you to forge ahead, irrespective of challenges you face.  This is your springboard to the next level.  Once you appreciate what you have in the present, then you can make plans to achieve more and better in the future.  This should not be motivated by competition with neighbours or by others perception of how you choose to live your life.  It should be done in keeping with your individual values and drive. Always follow your passions towards your destiny; ensure those passions are in sync with your psyche and feel good in your soul.

Gratitude means we can achieve all the blessings bestowed upon each of us, another step to happiness.  We all have reasons to be grateful and we should embrace those reasons so as to attract more towards us.  If we do not know how to appreciate what we have, do we really know who we are and where we are going?