Taurus Rising

What are you thankful for?

On Twitter, there is a meme that goes around on Thursdays: #ThankfulThursday It’s a really nice meme and it had me thinking, “What am I grateful for?”

A few months ago, a friend on mine wrote a wonderful post on the importance of gratitude and noticing the small blessings in life.  She talked about being grateful for the people that got you to where you are now.  And she discussed the importance of expressing your gratitude to others.

For almost a year, I’ve been keeping a “gratitude journal”.  It is actually part of my Moleskine planner.  Every night before I go to bed, I write down five things (or more) that I am thankful for.  Once you get yourself into the habit of doing this, you begin to see the things to be grateful for.  I’ve come to the realization that phases in my life that I thought of as awful, were actually blessings in disguise.

Think about where you currently stand in life.  How do you feel about your situation?  Are you satisfied?  Are you unhappy?  Wherever you are, think about the positive things that you have to be thankful for.  No matter how silly or how crazy it sounds.  Here are some examples:

• Being dumped by your significant other for twenty years, which allowed you to become single and find The One.
• Becoming friends with Shady People and then realizing what kind of qualities you want to find in a Good Friend… and then later finding yourself surrounded with them.
• Having your laptop break, to make you realize that you were spending too much time on it – and then finding your love for writing again.
• Being fired from a job that you didn’t like, which opened yourself to be called upon a career in a hobby that you adore.

Yet often, it is the “small things” that are overlooked. For example:

• Beautiful weather.
• A job.
• Good health.
• An education.
• Shelter and food.
• Creativity.
• Breakfast (my personal favorite meal of the day!)
• Coffee
• Love from those around you.
• A supportive family.
• Your favorite outfit.
• Blasting your favorite music in your car.

Sometimes, we don’t think to thank the people that are there to support us everyday.  Saying “thank you” is only two words, but it goes a long way.  Remember to thank your support group, your teachers, and your loved ones near and far.  And as I always like to recommend, it’s easy to send a quick thank you note through e-mail, but a hand-written one is more personal.

Even if things seem to be going wrong, don’t forget the little things.  There is always something to be grateful for.

Image courtesy of lumix2004 from sxc.hu

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Tags: #thankfulthursday, Gratitude, Twitter

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 24th, 2009 at 9:15 AM. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.