GRATITUDE ( "THANK YOU" ONE OF THE SWEETEST WORDS)

Appreciation  Goes A long Way....


Gratitude or thankfulness is, in fact, a grand concept to most of us; so much more, because being grateful or thankful seem a tall order these days. What is there to be grateful about in our wretched, cruel world, when people kill each other at the slightest fault, not only thru unthinkable acts, but also thru sharp, wounding words? What is there to be thankful for, when kids die of toil or hunger instead of skipping their way to school, babies get sold like pancakes for a living when they ought to be nurtured and cared for, men and women lead lives of indecency and promiscuity, and the sick, old, and dying become eyesores to society? Where is the beautiful, the good, and the pure that we ought to be grateful about? In this day and age, all these things seem to have been thrown outside the proverbial window.

Somehow, though, despite all the crap that the world has been churning out in recent times, I still choose to cultivate my personal culture of having a grateful or thankful spirit. Gratitude or thankfulness leads one to move above and beyond limitations toward the real beauty of things. As Melody Beattie so aptly put it, “Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”  I choose to cultivate gratitude and thankfulness within myself, because by doing so, I invite acceptance, optimism and positivity, and most importantly, I invite hope to reside within me.



What am I still grateful about despite the bad news that always seems to grate on my nerves, gradually eroding my feelings of hope? For one, I always choose to be thankful for being alive, for being awake and aware of writing this article, hoping, in the process to inspire you with the expression of my train of thoughts. I am grateful for the beauty of nature, the majesty of all creation, the splendor offered by Mother Earth, the nurturance given by our environment. I am simply thankful for the air that I breathe down my nostrils every moment, the beating of my heart, the presence of clean drinking water in our home, and simply having a roof over our heads.

 I am grateful for having a complete and healthy body with all senses intact and functioning, for having the ability to read, write, think, and communicate, for having family and friends, and for having been given opportunities with which to further develop myself. I am thankful about everything that has ever happened to me, good or bad, for all of these experiences have contributed a lot to the person I am now.

These are the things I’m thankful about. How about you? Have you ever thought of the things to be grateful for in your life? Or were you too focused on how miserable life really is? Would you rather that you smell the roses, or the pungent smell of the trash next door? Will you see a half-full or a half-empty glass? It’s really down to you, and the choice you’re going to have to make for yourself. Come on –life is a beauty, only if you choose to see it that way. If I were you, I’d choose to see the wonders of our world. “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life”, says Melody Beattie. “It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to reality. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.” Make friends with life, with beauty, with love, with laughter, with friendship, and make this place a beauty to live in!

THANKS FOR READING ...XOXO STEPHY