Did you know that one of the most effective and simplest way to improve the quality of your life is to practice gratitude?
What Is Gratitude?
Gratitude is a very deep sense of thankfulness. It’s about appreciating things and people and events in your life. It is about changing the focus to those things that are well in your life, instead of paying attention to what is wrong in your life.
Even though it’s one of the simplest ways of improving the quality of life, yet for some reason, it seems to be very difficult to a lot of people.
Obstacles to Practicing Gratitude
One of the reasons why practicing gratitude may seem difficult is because we like to be right. We have our perception on life and what’s going on. It seems to be difficult to change the perception from what is wrong or what is not appreciated to something that we do appreciate.
Many people mistakenly think that if they think of what is wrong, it can be fixed. Not so. When you take your focus off the problem and think about the solution instead, you are headed in the right direction.
It is really because, like they say, there’s always two sides of a story or two sides in a coin and the vast majority of people live in a world of duality. There are always two sides to things. Therefeore, it is a choice whether we look at the dark side or the bright side of things.
The reason why it is so difficult for many is that we are so used to see things the way we see them. We have our habits, and we are accustomed to view the world in a certain way. Yet, it is only us that view it that way.
Gratitude Is a Choice
Let’s say you are in a relationship with someone. In the morning, when you wake up, before getting out of bed, you really think about how much you appreciate the other person. Really think, for a little moment, about some of those good moments that you have. You don’t have to think of all those good moments, just think about some of the good qualities the other person has.
And then, when you have that sense of gratitude, that you are grateful that that person is in your life, how different will the greeting in the morning, saying good morning or kissing good morning will be?
Instead of, let’s say, the first thought in the morning is that you remember the little fight that you had the day before. It is a change of perception. Which perception do you choose?
Or let’s say you’ve had a really bad day at work. You’re going home. And you know that there will be your spouse and your kids. You are hungry. You had a stressful day or whatever. If you open the door with that mental state, how will the family perceive you when you walk in the door? How will your experience be?
If, instead, before opening the door, you just take a little moment and think about all the great things your family has brought into your life. Just take a moment, feel grateful, and then you open the door to your home. How different will everything seem? Even if there’s a lot of noise and screaming and shouting going on with the kids or there’s a mess in the house.
If you look at your kids and your spouse through a lens of gratefulness, how different will your experience of that moment be?
What if you extended the same attitude throughout your life? I’m sure you can see already how different your experience of the whole life will be.
That is why I say that gratefulness is one of the most efficient or simplest way to improve the quality of life.
Words of Wisdom
But don’t just take my word for it. In my book, Words of Wisdom, the chapter twelve is about gratitude, and there’s a brilliant quote in my book from Neale Donald Walsh:
That is so true. We seem to be struggling with little things in life. Instead of seeing them as adversities, as seeing them as problems, what if you would see them as learning experiences?
All those adversities that you encounter throughout your day, throughout your life, if you really think about them, they are all, I claim, opportunities for you to learn something new and grow.
So, gratitude is a great way to grow. Instead of looking at things as why did that person do me wrong or whatever, I suggest that you took them as a learning experiences with gratefulness, thinking, “I’m so grateful that that happened so I can learn, I can grow, I can improve myself.”
So may I propose that you add a little bit of gratitude to your next day or even for today.
If you would feel just one additional moment of gratitude per day, soon you will realize that you can add a little bit more of those moments of gratitude.
And when you do that, adding a little more and a little more, you will soon realize that you have fundamentally changed your experience of life.
