Optimism and gratitude go hand in hand. In 2013 I made a resolution to make this year "The Year of Optimism". I call it my optimism project. One of the many great side effects is the fact that my feelings of gratitude have gone through the roof!! I’ve been keeping a gratitude journal and writing 10 things I’m grateful for in it every morning. It is amazing how much that transforms how I look at the rest of the day. I find myself being grateful not just for the unexpected blessing but for every little common occurance.
When I first started writing the list, it was challenging to think of ten things. I felt like they had to be big or significant. After a day of being grateful for things like family, a roof over my head, good health and other “obvious” blessings, I was stumped as how I was going to list 10 new things every single day. It was as if I felt like I had everything covered.
In hindsight this really makes me laugh! Because now every single action I do, every blink of my eye and every breath I take causes a wave of gratitude.
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Definition: gratitude (noun) græ ti tu:d 1. Thanks; a feeling of being thankful to somebody for doing something. 2. The quality of being thankful or grateful.
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There is something to be grateful for in each and every action of our day. I sneeze and I’m grateful for the Kleenex (imagine, if it wasn’t there! Eeewwww!!!), I make coffee and I can be amazed and grateful for running water (a significant portion of the world doesn’t even enjoy that!) or I take a step and I’m grateful I have the health and well being that allows me to walk across the room. The more I practice this kind of list making, the more I start to realize that each and everything I do, touch, see or think is something to be grateful for.
The real kicker is this: Eyes of gratitude see unlimited potential.
When you start to recognize everything….and I mean everything ….as something to be grateful for you start to recognize the vast prospective of possibilities. The best example I can think of is being grateful for something that used to bother me or cause me a lot of stress. I used to think of all the reasons I didn’t like that particular situation. I’d anticipate having a bad experience or significant challenges. But when I started being downright grateful for those things, then MY perspective changed.
“No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks.” St. Ambrose
It’s not until you give thanks and are truly thankful that things begin to change. My eyes see opportunity where before I used to see stress…or worse, I saw nothing at all. Allowing myself to be grateful for every single circumstance allows me to see God in each of those occasions. And where God is, there is much to be grateful for.
You can read more posts from Beth Lopez about her Year of Optimism on www.theroadtofaith.com or like the facebook page at www.facebook.com/theroadtofaith
