Can you walk? Can you see? You can talk? You can hear? You have a job? You have a family? Do you have a roof? You have food? Do you have a love? Can you help someone? Are you healthy? If the answer to most of these questions is yes, then be grateful, as many people have never had or will never experience most of these gifts while you can. Hence the importance of gratitude and appreciating what you have already achieved.
And, if you find it easy to complain and/or ask, and find it very difficult to say thank you, know that there is an infallible tool that will help you: the gratitude journal. Sometimes we spend 24 hours a day on autopilot, so used to the routine that the amount of things we do doesn't even cross our minds. And look, believe me, if you stop to think about it, you'll see you're a hero.
Starting this journal is pretty simple. Before bed, or during your free time, write down at least one thing you were grateful for that day. It doesn't have to be some extraordinary event. Friend, trust me, after writing the first few pages, your perception will change and you will see that your life is not as bad as you think.
You will learn that the best things in life are free. Besides, you will feel bad when you remember that, while people were in a hospital bed, or in a prison without being able to see the sunset, without freedom, starving and cold, you complained with a full belly, martyring yourself for such small things .
In a week, there will be at least seven things to be thankful for and appreciate. In a month, 30 and, in a year, 365 reasons to be grateful and see that you've achieved a lot. Or, who knows, the opposite may happen and you realize that you've experienced little and that you need to learn to say thank you more.
How old are you? Take a moment to remember the difficulties and joys that marked you. How many times were you cornered and managed to find your way out? How many lions have you killed (and are killing) a day at home, work, school or anywhere else you go? Hercules' twelve labors will be nothing compared to what he has already done.
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We are blessed to be living this journey. So thank God, Buddha, Allah, or whatever your god is, for the vicissitudes, joys, and all the other gifts that life gives you between the time the sun rises and sets over the horizon.
“In our daily lives, we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratitude that makes us happy.” Albert Clarke, renowned British photographer.
