Have You Said "Thank You" Today?

"When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude."

G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936) English essayist, novelist, journalist, poet

How much time do you spend each day moaning and complaining about all the things going wrong or that are bad about your life. Things don't always go to plan. It rains when we have to go out, the bus doesn't come, our head aches, we feel grumpy and low about everything. There is no denying that for some people things are difficult - but are we those people? Maybe we need to take stock and really evaluate the sum total of our lives. Is our cup half empty, or if we really look at it, is our cup more than half full?

Dwelling on all the negative aspects of our lives can become a habit and many of us find it hard to find pleasure in even the smallest thing we do. It becomes too easy not to wear rose-tinted glasses, but glasses that obscure the reality of what is positive about our lives. It came home to many people about how fortunate most of us really are when the tsunami hit. As well as many lives lost, many people lost their livelihoods, their homes, their families, friends, and neighbours. How many of us have actually faced something as devastating as that? Then there were the gale-force winds that hit us here in Scotland, not long after the terrible flooding that meant many people were forced from their homes in other areas of the United Kingdom and everyone was suffering from power cuts. Standing in a hot shower the morning after we had spent the night without power ourselves, I know I, for one, was counting my blessings. That shower really put it in perspective for me. The evening before had been a little challenging to be sure, (where were the spare batteries and were the candles all in safe places?) but it had also been rather fun. Not so for those people whose lives had been washed away by a giant wave. I had so much to be grateful for and so many good things in my life. Every moment was to be savoured and noted.

A good exercise is to get a little notebook to carry around with you, or sit down with a piece of paper at the end of each day, and take time to note every good thing that you experience in the day. It can be as big as getting a promotion at work to as small a thing as having a baby smile at you - a tiny gift that is given unreservedly. You will soon find yourself concentrating on the things in your life that make you feel good - the things that you can say "thank you" for. Surely going through your days with a positive frame of mind has to be better than spending every moment looking for the dark side of every cloud? If it is raining, look for the rainbow. Jump in the puddles and enjoy the life you have. It won't come again.