Let’s chat a bit about an attitude of gratitude using this story. There is a lot of construction going on in the place that I am living at right now. It’s low season and it’s a good time to get a lot of repairs and shit done.
Which is great for the guests that might be coming in the future. But for people like me, who are living here right now, it’s annoying. I was speaking to an older gentleman about it recently, and he said something really interesting that I wanted to share with you.
He said that in his journal this morning, he asked himself what he had to be grateful for, and he wrote down, “I’m grateful for the construction noises because it makes me appreciate the quiet even more.” He said that it’s all part of the plan.
The universe wants to remind us over and over again that we have a lot to be grateful for. But as we are stupid or forgetful, we keep on forgetting, and thus, the universe has to constantly remind us of the same thing over and over again.
The same lessons come at us in a million different ways.
An Attitude Of Gratitude Goes A Long Way
It would have been easy for this man who is on vacation and who is dealing with a lot of noise on it, when all he wants is peace, to be angry about it. And wave his money around and say that he’s paying a lot for a room and he shouldn’t have to deal with so much noise.
But instead, he is choosing to cultivate an attitude of gratitude, and because he’s so nice about the whole thing, he ended up getting a discount on the room anyways.
Of course, it’s not about the money, or about the noise. It’s about all of us moving through the world daily hopefully choosing things we are grateful for rather than the other things that annoy us, and irritate us.
It’s so easy to make this choice. Well, perhaps, it can be hard in the moment to see the roses for the thorns. It’s so much easier sometimes to yell and cry and hate the world. But if we practice at it, then it will get easier and easier.
It’s all about making it so automatic that when someone hits your car from behind, you think, “Yay, I get to work from home for a week, while my car is being repaired. Hurray!” Or something like that.
Choose Gratitude Whenever You Can
Not only will choosing gratitude result in an easier, happier life for you, but it will also ensure that you are smoothly going through the world. No friction, no chaos, and no conflict.
There is no way for people to fight with someone or bring someone down who has chosen to see the good in everything that is around them. That’s the way I want to live in this beautiful world.
It’s easy to talk about it, of course. But when my parents fall ill, or I break a leg, it’s much harder. That’s when the true test of it all comes out.
I hope you will take this short reminder today and start bringing gratitude into everything you are doing. It’s a much easier path to take once you get used to it, and once you make it an automatic way of your life.
