I could probably write for days about this subject. Having gratitude is a very new concept for me. For too long I was very focused on what I lacked, where I wasn’t, and overall just having a victim mentality in totality. I made some changes over the past five years in my life by surrounding myself with like minded people, focusing on my goals, and really making an effort to better my position. You see, the fact that you and I are here, now, is statistically impossible. The simple fact is that the odds of being here are 400 trillion to 1. Think about that for a second. 400 TRILLION TO ONE! So, even though I moped around and thought the entire world was against me at one point, I won the lottery, so did you, and so did everyone else on planet Earth!
With all of that in mind, gratitude is something that you need to have in your life. There are so many points where my life was in a tailspin and I didn’t know what to do to solve the problem. One year I moved 4 times… when I have to do something around my house that I don’t want to do, I often look back on that year and think how fortunate I am to be able to afford the house that my wife and I own together. When I have a day at work that totally sucked I think back to 2009 when the terrible economic climate cost me a third of my paycheck. When something happens that might seem like the end of the world to some people, I think back to the people I love, the fact that they’re here and that one day they won’t be. This kind of thinking helps me to realign myself with reality.
Gratitude, in general, won’t solve everything, but if you allow yourself to take a mental inventory of all the good you’ve accumulated over the years I promise you you’ll feel better. After you can put your emotions back in the correct spaces so you can work efficiently and get to the goals that you’ve been wanting to accomplish. The best part about gratitude is that it’s cyclical. The more you are grateful, and the more positivity you put out into the universe the more you’ll look at your life in a fresh perspective of how awesome everything really is. Are you still going to have bad days? Sure, but after a while, your best days without gratitude won’t compare to your worst with gratitude.
The take away: list 10 things that you’re in which you are grateful. EVERY DAY! Do it when you wake up. Next, tell the people you love how you are grateful that they’re in your life. After you’re all done with that, when something happens that’s less than desired, remember the list from that day. Think about your life if you had none of the love, security or the things that make you happy and I promise you, you’ll see life in a whole new positive light!
-Aa
