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How to Live With
Gratitude
Terence Young
Want to know a
simple way to increase your enjoyment of life 100 percent? Develop an
attitude of gratitude! Thankfulness in the heart makes all of the
struggles and trials of life more bearable, and increases your joy in
the good times. So how does gratitude work, and what are some things a
person can do to build more of it into their life?
If you've been working on the goal of having a more positive attitude
toward life, gratitude is a natural outcome. The first step in
developing a more thankful spirit is to take a good look at the things
in your life that are going well. Sometimes life feels like a roller
coaster - up and down, up and down. But in reality, if you look well,
you'll see that there are challenges happening during the up times, and
good things happening during the down times.
The goal, when developing gratitude, is to accentuate the positive, as
the old song says. Put your focus on those good things. Remember the
other old gratefulness song, "Count Your Blessings" from the musical,
"White Christmas?" In the song, we are admonished to picture curly heads
sleeping in the nursery. Do you have children? What nicer thing is there
to be thankful for than your children, grandchildren, or young friends.
Health, family, and basic provisions are other things that are often
overlooked when someone is evaluating all the trouble in their life. In
fact, if you are able to read this on your own computer, you are
probably in the top one percent of people in the world when it comes to
wealth. Did you ever think about that?
Maybe you have challenges and disappointments in these basic areas of
life. Maybe you have a handicapping condition or are living with chronic
pain or illness. Maybe your family life is filled with heartache. Maybe
the bills are piling up and you can't figure out how you can ever meet
them. Does this mean that you can't find a reason to be thankful? No, of
course there are reasons to be thankful.
But even more important than why you can be thankful is why you should
live a life of gratitude. Studies have been done in which participants
kept journals recording either things they were thankful for or each
day's hassles. The results were that the thankful journal keepers had
more energy, better health, more hope for the future, and generally felt
better about their lives as a whole. In fact, one long term study showed
the more thankful people to live almost seven years longer than the
least thankful!
Religion often plays a role in developing gratefulness. If we
acknowledge the benevolence of a higher power who gives us our health,
food, ability to work, and even the air we breathe, it helps us realize
that we are not really responsible for everything we have. It is at the
same time freeing and humbling to realize that we are not completely in
charge of how things go in our lives.
About the Author:
For more personal growth articles visit:
www.personalgrowthunlimited.com
Article Source:
www.iSnare.com
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