This is the time that folks tend to post about gratitude. Which is a shame in my book, because gratitude is really an all-year sort of thing… not a once-a-year event.
I mean, yes, I am grateful for the opportunity to gather with friends and family and celebrate the gifts that we’ve received. And having a specific day designated to remember and appreciate our gifts is probably a good thing… because it’s so easy to forget what we have each and every day.
But life is so much better when gratitude is experienced and expressed more than once a year!
I like how Jeremy Adam Smith put it in his recent post, Six Habits of Highly Grateful People:
Gratitude (and its sibling, appreciation) is the mental tool we use to remind ourselves of the good stuff. It’s a lens that helps us to see the things that don’t make it onto our lists of problems to be solved. It’s a spotlight that we shine on the people who give us the good things in life. It’s a bright red paintbrush we apply to otherwise-invisible blessings, like clean streets or health or enough food to eat.
And as I was writing this post, my friend and colleague Diane Durand just sent me something incredibly brilliant. (No surprise there… she IS brilliant!) What she wrote was actually a tip for folks drawing Good Enough, but I think it could easily apply to gratitude just as well:
[highlights color=”ffea00″] If you can’t make it big, make it red, if you can’t make it red, make a lot of them. [/highlights]
This Thanksgiving, give BIG gratitude for your world. If you can’t generate big gratitude, grab that bright red paintbrush that Jeremy Aden Smith mentioned and highlight the otherwise-invisible blessings. And if you can’t see those invisible blessings, take a moment and give thanks for all the blessings you can see.
And then do it again.
And again.
And again… ;^)
How do you like to express gratitude? Let me know in the comments below!
With tremendous thanks for you being a part of my world,
Jeannel
