What Are You Grateful for Today?

So much in life depends on the frame through which we see the world. Humans are strange creatures. It seems like, no matter how far we’ve come, we always long for the next road and no matter how much we have, we always want more.

John Ortberg once said that “Gratitude is the ability to experience life as a gift. It liberates us from self-preoccupation.” There is so much wisdom in this simple statement.

Focusing on what we don’t have is destructive on so many levels. It drives us to work for goals that are either unachievable or undesirable. It makes us resent other people, who, through luck or hard work, have more than us. Worst of all, it takes our attention away from the things that really matter and robs us of our ability to live in the moment.

Fortunately, there is an alternative – we can train ourselves to see the world through the frame of gratitude. We can strive to achieve great things, while still remembering what we have already accomplished. We can be grateful for what we have instead of lustful for what we don’t. We can see the world as a place of miracles, not an engine of production.

We can learn to love and appreciate gratitude as the gift and the giver.

What are you grateful for today? Do you agree or disagree that gratitude is one of the keys to happiness? Why or why not? Please add your thoughts in the comments section.