It’s important to be grateful.
Not just on special occasions, or anniversaries, or even when you feel good. Be grateful each and every day. The more, the better, really. There is so much to be thankful for.
Not everything in our life needs to be perfect. Not everything has to be in its rightful place. Our lives can be full of incomplete and unpolished dreams. Things that we have started but not quite completed or delivered. We have the right to live in dignified clutter, a work in progress per se, but we must always remember our duty to ourselves and each other, to be grateful.
We need to say thank you often. We need to remember and recognise the little kindnesses we encounter throughout the day, as well as the grand gestures that circle back in our direction a little less often.
Without gratitude life will appear bleak. It’s a dark, cold place, and it is always raining. It’s a place where things always go wrong. Monday.
Be ready to be grateful at any moment. Be on guard to return the kindness of friends and strangers.
Buy someone a coffee this morning.
Perhaps a someone you have never met. It’s easy, really, and there is no chance of getting anything in return. It is the best act of kindness because you will not have it bartered away.
Take the time to talk to someone.
Ask someone how they are doing today? Stay quiet and try to listen and understand. Listen for a little while at least, before you feel the urge to take your next step and walk away.
Make it your mission today to respond to 7 posts on Facebook.
Don’t just click like buttons or send digital hearts. Don’t watch from a distance. Respond to someone. If they took the time to write something that is on their heart, they wrote it for a reason. Write back. Give back. Be human.
Do this all day, and then at night, sit quietly, take out a piece of paper and your half-eaten pencil. Write today’s date. Make a list of all the things you are grateful for. Keep the list current. Only think of today.
Look at it. Embrace the fact that today was a good day. We have a tendency to easily forget. Now go to bed knowing you’ve made a difference. You were part of the human family.
Wake up tomorrow and do it again.
