Leading and Love

Whenever I speak to my dad, he always starts off the conversation by expressing some form of gratitude - for life, for family, for health, for cognitive ability, and so on. 

Years ago, I used to always say “I’m tired, man!” One day he called me on it by saying that I should be grateful for the ability to be tired, pointing out that many people don’t have the opportunity to exhaust their energy on valuable activities. Some either do nothing at all or spend energy on fruitless pursuits. 

I’ve always been told to count my blessings, and I’ve tried. I usually get to a relatively short number when I start looking at superficial things. But when I dig deep and I assess the day-to-day and moment-to-moment, I realize the blessings start to stack up very quickly, where they become very difficult to count. With the blessings ramping up rapidly, I have to resort to showing gratitude in all things.

Idea #1

We experience a constant stream of blessings even though we qualify them at specific points in time - like when we get a new car, or a dream job, taking the vacation of a lifetime. Approaching blessings from a materialistic perspective ends the count very quickly. But removing the material components and looking at the intangibles - like being able to think or the ability to create or being able to spend time with those we love - stretches our blessings across time. We might realize that we actually spend more time in fortune than we do in misfortune.

Idea #2

Blessings like sand are highly noticeable but hard to count grain by grain. Once you start counting, you soon realize that it’s easy to replace complaint with gratitude.

Quote #1

“Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.” - Charles Dickens

Quote #2

"Gratitude turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity...it makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow." - Melody Beattie

Quote #3

"When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around." Willie Nelson

Challenge

Look around you and find a way to demonstrate gratitude. Make it a daily routine to show gratitude for something.

Affirmation

I am grateful for all that I have and who I am.