Gratitude

I am thrilled to see the sun this morning. My family is all healthy today, and I have several meet-ups planned with various friends today to look forward to. I am filled with gratitude for this. I like to start and end each day thinking about the things that I am grateful for. It seems simplistic, and perhaps Pollyanna-ish, but I can say without hesitation that gratitude has changed my life, remade it even.

Giving thanks is not something we learn much about. Like many of us, I grew up always seeing the obstacles, fearing the worst and generally going about life as though I were fighting a rearguard action. I am not sure exactly when it began to sink in, but I had seen the little lessons from here and there, and about ten or fifteen years ago I decided to change the way I look at things and see only the plusses (and any minusses that I could change or do something about).

For me, gratitude is nothing more than the simple act of pausing in quiet reflection, fixing something that is wonderful in my life in my mind, and letting the feeling of gratitude well up inside me. If you have a spiritual tradition that includes some power greater than yourself, it is nice to send that gratitude in the general direction of this power. If not, just feel the power of gratitude in yourself and maybe share it with those you love. I think that love is sort of the inevitable result of gratitude, but that is a story for another day, along with a story about the differing traditions of Canadian and American Thanksgiving.

I sincerely wish for you that today you have something in your life for which you are grateful. Just a little thought or two on this American Thanksgiving.

Thanks.