Thursday, July 13, 2017

Gratitude


Lately I have spent a good deal of time focusing on gratitude. In a world full of schedules, instant access, unhappiness, politics, deadlines and challenges one can never stop and take time to be in gratitude. Gratitude is not simply being positive, or happy, but being truly in the moment and thankful for the just that moment. Like the pull tab sign in the picture above, do you need gratitude?

Recently I was at a brief talk given by Steve from the Life Is Good company. He spoke about the age old, and fairly tired, "is the glass half full, or empty?" question. He said the optimistic person is thankful that there is water in the glass at all, and thinking about how they could fill it for more people. This is a very gratitude focused mentality. Do not worry about the state of the water, be glad you have some, and work to fill the glass for more people.


If you are working toward being the best version of yourself, you need to practice optimism and gratitude. Also from Life Is Good Steve, "Optimism and Abs are both improved with exercise." This is a poignant phrase, being in gratitude does not mean you are happy every moment of every day, or never upset at things. But when exercising optimism and gratitude often, you can realign to the path quicker to become the best version of yourself.