Gratitude – the state of being grateful.
I believe in being grateful for the beauty, joy, happiness, and people in my life. I am blessed, this I know.
Unfortunately, in the hurriedness of day-to-day life I sometimes lose track of my gratitude, but when I take a moment to pause and look around at the struggles that so many others endure without complaint I am brought back to how blessed I am. I saw a book in the Zozo store at the airport today titled Gratitude. It was filled with quotes about gratitude – reminders of the importance of being consciously thankful. I thought that perhaps I should buy the book so that I could look at it from time to time to make sure my gratitude rudder was steering me in the right direction. I didn’t buy the book. Instead I made a mental note that gratitude, to become a norm, needs to be practiced daily – perhaps even hourly. It isn’t something for a special occasion, it is something for all occasions.
Melody Beattie said:
“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.”
Practice gratitude at least once a day and I promise you - life will be fuller and happier. Try it for 30 days and afterwards tell me how a steady diet of gratitude affected you. My guess is that it will transform you and likely those around you as well. Trust me, this is one diet that won’t fail you. 
One thousand and sixty-eight of the new forty – obla di obla da
Ms. C
MANY THANKS for the quote! My mother must have said “be thankful” or “I’m so thankful” a dozen times a day. I remember one time when I was an addled-lescent and on a real whine-a-thon about how “life isn’t fair!” She listened for awhile and then said: “Be thankful that life isn’t fair. If life was fair it might be your turn to live in somebody’s wheelchair.”