To begin, Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate it. I’m deeply grateful for you subscribing to Perennial Meditations and taking your precious time to read my ramblings on the art of living.
Gratitude to Grateful
An interview with Kristi Nelson (author of Wakeup Grateful) uncovered the difference between gratitude and being grateful. Nelson explained, gratefulness is gratitude for life. It reminds us that, in simply being alive, we are continually receiving. While gratitude — as we know it — needs something good to happen, gratefulness only requires us to be awake. “We do not need to do anything to feel grateful or wait for anything more. We merely need to allow ourselves to notice and be wowed by things we so often overlook and tend to take for granted in the lives we already have.”
Similarly, the Benedictine Monk Brother David Steindl-Rast tells us,
You think this is just another day in your life. It’s not just another day it’s the one day, it’s the one day that is given to you today. It’s a gift it’s the only gift you have right now — and the only appropriate response is gratefulness.
The traditional gratitude practice scans our days to look for a few things to feel gratitude. Gratefulness works from the inside out — taking nothing for granted. Gratefulness is about knowing in your bones that each day is precious.
21 Short Reminders (for Grateful Living)
“Gratitude not only the greatest of all virtues but the parent of all others.” — Cicero
“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.” — Epictetus
“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.” — John F. Kennedy
“This is a wonderful day I have never seen this one before.” — Maya Angelou
“I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.” — Ralph Wardo Emerson
“Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.” — Voltaire
“Enough is a feast.” — Buddhist Proverb
“In ordinary life, we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.” — Deitrich Bonhoeffer
“Wear gratitude as a cloak, and it will feed every corner of your life.” — Rumi
“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” — Marcel Proust
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” — Epicurus
“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.” — Buddha
“The root of joy is gratefulness.” — David Steindl-Rast
“If the only prayer you said was thank you that would be enough.” — Meister Eckhart
“I was complaining that I had no shoes till I met a man who had no feet.” – Confucius
“Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid but which none have a right to expect.” — Jean-Jacques Rousseau
“The most fortunate are those who have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder and even ecstasy.” — Abraham Maslow
“Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.” — Ernest Hemingway
“Not merely to bear what is necessary still less conceal it… but love it.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
“I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline.” — Henri Nouwen
“Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!” — Dostoevsky
Final Thoughts
Should every day of the year be a day of thanks? What about every moment? If modern research, philosophers, and theologians all point to the benefits and wisdom of gratitude — why is it so easy to take things for granted?
The American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson put it this way, “Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”
Being grateful is a habit — just like any other virtue. Each moment of our lives provides an opportunity to practice gratefulness.
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As always, thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,