„Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.
It turns what we have into enough, and more.
It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order,
confusion to clarity.
It can turn a meal into a feast,
a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.
Gratitude makes sense of our past,
brings peace for today,
and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
Melody Beattie

 

Plant a seed of gratitude

Gratitude is like a seed, which, planted on a proper soil and constantly watered, grows gradually to finally yield a rich harvest. It is every single, honestly uttered “Thank you” sown in the garden of our soul on the ground of mindfulness, which allows us to perceive and appreciate the smallest manifestations of the grace of fate.

This is every conscious acceptance and appreciation not only for spectacular things, but first and foremost for the little things that make up our everyday life. It’s the focus on how much we receive instead of on what we do not have yet. It’s the feeling of abundance instead of the sense of lack.

It is a spark that kindles the flame of happiness and causes that there’s more and more of it in us. Because it is not the happiness that is the reason to be thankful – it’s the gratitude that is the reason for happiness. So if you think you’ll be grateful when you get what you do not have yet, then you’ll never have enough to feel gratitude. However, if you thank for everything you have now, you will soon notice that every day you get more and more reasons for gratitude.

So every day say “Thank you”. For the fact that you are alive and a new day has come, for a morning ray of sunshine, water running from you tap, usual everyday bread, for all the good times that you have, and for the difficult ones shared with those who are always there.

Sounds clichéd? It’s very likely, because the littlest things are the ones that are the most difficult to appreciate. Receiving them every day, we do not pay special attention to them. What is more, we believe that we are entitled to them by definition, just like that.

We appreciate health only when we lose it. You probably know the feeling of great satisfaction when you recover from a strong cold. You don’t think then of complaining about the imperfect taste of the morning coffee, because the very fact of returning to health makes the perspective of reality perception change, so you begin to appreciate the trifles again, such as the fact that we can have a coffee.

Unfortunately, this state does not last long, because we quickly get used to the things that constitute our everyday life, so we soon start complaining again: that the weather is hopeless, because it’s raining in the middle of summer, that the traffic jam on our way to work is so long and forced us to take a different route than usual, that the work is so difficult, the car very old, the doctor’s visit too long, and the day unlucky, because today’s morninig the tap water has been turned off and additionally we had to wait long in the tax office, that the children are messy and making noise all the time, and we have only few friends.

But what would happen if we changed our perception and instead of focusing on negative things, we looked for the positives ones? Perhaps we would noticed that the rain has fallen, so the quality of air in the city will improve, and what is more there will be no need to water the garden, that by taking the different route to work we managed to avoid the collision on the highway, that the challenges make our work developing, and a good team makes the difficult and time-consuming project feasible, that our car is economical, and the costs of its maintenance are not large, that the visit at the doctor’s office is long, so that the doctor has the opportunity to carry it out with proper accuracy and make the right diagnosis, that we have cool neighbors who remember to let us know that a water supply cut is scheduled for the next morning, so that we can plan to get up early to get a shower in time, that the lady at the office was very nice and helpful, which let us to handle a very important matter, so that ultimately everything went well, that children have a lot of energy, which is a sign of health and contentment, that our friends are exceptional and we can always rely on them. If we appreciated every good word, every helping hand and every experience, it would turn out that there is plenty of things we can thank for.

Appreciation of what we receive from fate does not mean at all that we should tell ourselves that everything in our life is just perfect, neither that we should not aim for anything, nor that we should not dream about or change anything. It means only a change of life attitude to the one in which we look on the bright side of every thing, each minus change into a plus, a failure and a life crisis into the experience that builds us, giving us understanding that is the beginning of the road heading us in the right direction, and the harm suffered from others to the lesson of humility and empathy.

So let’s sow a seed of gratitude today for all that we have received so far, because we ourselves are the gardeners of our soul and what we sow in it, that will grow in us. So let’s sow gratefullness and soon we will receive a good harvest and more reasons to be grateful.

The article  published in the “Piórko” magazine.

The whole magazine  can be downloaded on the Imagination Corner publishing house’s website.