Gratitude
It’s easy to focus at any given moment on what we are lacking. In a way, that is a very adaptive mechanism to make sure that we focus on providing for ourselves as we need. However, unless we can also be grateful for what we do have, we will never experience contented happiness, which is probably the most desirable state to be in.
Resistance to Gratitude
Being grateful for what you do have, by the way, is not a way of saying to yourself that you don’t deserve more. Or that you deserve less than what others have. Or that a you deserve less than what your heart desires.
I know that this is a common reflex reaction to being told to be grateful, because it was my own reaction in my youth.
But when I later began to experience really difficult moments in my life, I began to realize the importance of gratitude. Being able to recognize and be grateful the tiniest parts of your day that are just basically good, or that even bring you the tiniest amounts of joy, is essential to finding and maintaining a reason to go on even in the darkest hours and heaviest situations.
How to Find Gratitude
How can you experience gratitude? Especially when you are really not happy and feel like everything is going wrong?
Think, for example, about what you are doing to take care of yourself. Are you wrapped in a warm blanket? Does that feel good? You can take some comfort and feel some gratitude in that.
If you watch a comedy, does it make you laugh? Recognize and feel grateful for the laughter. Feel grateful for the moment that you are not focused on everything that is difficult and wrong.
Go outside. For me, nature has always been a wondrous thing. But it is something that I often don’t pay attention to in my daily hectic life. This is especially true if I am in a city. If that’s the case with you as well, make plans to find a quiet green space, preferably one either with benches or with trails, and just go be there for a while.
Science has shown that green spaces are objectively good for mental health. So even if you have never experienced love of outdoors, try it and see.
For me, spending time in the outdoors invariably triggers gratitude at simply being alive and having the opportunity to experience life on Earth.
The Changes You Will See
As you might imagine, if you can find your way to experiencing this kind of gratitude, your whole perspective regarding your problems will shift. Your mood will lift. And your focus and productivity will return.
This means a better opportunity to problem-solve and do better for yourself. Then, you might get yourself into a better situation that you can also be more grateful for! Things may no be so great now, but they are also not completely irreparable. Everything does not have to perfect for it to be kind of great in its own way.
He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.
Epictetus
Avoid Future Regrets
Find the Joy in Your Challenges
Give yourself a goal, if you don’t already have one. If you have in mind a goal that you are working toward, it is easier to feel grateful for the opportunity to do work toward that goal. You are more aware of and can appreciate whatever simple things you started with and currently have as you work toward that goal.
It’s the “light at the end of the tunnel” idea—knowing some of your pressing problems may be solved soon, you can relax enough to be enjoy and be grateful for what you have around you now.
Find the Joy in your Everyday
Related post: Buy Yourself Flowers
Find Your Own Gratitude
Think to yourself today about what you have to be grateful for.
Make a list.
If you can’t think of anything, try something that you think will bring you comfort, or that you have always kind of wanted to do.
Even if that thing doesn’t turn out like you thought, you will probably feel some satisfaction at having finally tried, and can feel some gratitude at that.
Life is not promised to anyone, and almost always things could get worse, so try to recognize what you have while you have it. If you do, things are more likely to go up than down.
