Posted on 11/24/2011 7:35:30 PM PST by TBP
Eventually social science works its way around to confirming eternal verities. So it is with gratitude.
An article in a psychological journal a few years ago noted that “throughout history, religious, theological and philosophical treatises have viewed gratitude as integral to well-being.” Psychology has recently worked to quantify the wisdom of the ages and confirmed — sure enough — it was correct.
A raft of recent research has established that grateful people are happier people. They are less depressed and less stressed. They are less likely to envy others and more likely to want to share. They even sleep better.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Ha! Billionaire Okrah teaching others about gratitude! Happy people, people having something to be grateful for, are grateful people, not the other way around as the author and the “experts” would have it.
I think you have it backwards. What you focus on expands. An attitude of gratitude focuses on the good in your life, expands it, and increases happiness.
Everyone has something to be grateful for.
OK. I am a contrarian. What if there is little good in your life? Should you be grateful for Charlie Parker (mentioned in the article)? Really, what do I care about heroin addict Charlie Parker?
In the same mold, I’m grateful for Mick Jagger, and I have no reason to suspect it wasn’t he hisself, sending me Happy Thanksgiving greeting on Fakebook. But what does such gratefulloness mean?! Nothing as far as I can see.
(Thanks, I’m not trolling to start a flame war.)
As the article says, be grateful for your breath. Be grateful for what you have, however little it may be. The best way to have more is to begin by being grateful for what you have. Focus on abundance, not on lack.
Driving today to the dog park and then back to photograph dead end streets for a planned album about longing, because this was one of the few days when no cars would be parked there, and getting perhaps one good shot out of over a dozen, I was then feeling grateful for my tears (metaphorically, I wasn’t crying), as I was passing an occasional homeless person on the street, a cafe or two filled with lonely souls. Grateful for my breath, you say?
To be grateful is to notice what you have...water that magically comes from the tap, lights that turn on, a car that works, a nice meal, rather than to only notice what is missing, such as noticing only when the plumbing is broken, the electricity goes out, the car is on the fritz. A very good book about this is NAIKKAN.
For breath, for life, for everything.
Even if there is little good in your life, there is something. You’re alive. You have clothes on your back. There is something to be grateful for — always. Start there.
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