I found this quote from Oprah Winfrey and absolutely love it: “If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough.” Another great quote is from Cicero: “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.”
I completely believe that gratitude is what brings joy into our lives. We may have amazing family and friends, a great job, and a beautiful house, but those things don’t make us happy unless we appreciate them. That’s exactly why they say money doesn’t buy happiness—you can have lots of cool stuff, but if you don’t appreciate it you’ll never feel like it’s enough.
Taking Cicero’s quote further, I believe that gratitude is the ultimate soul healer (next to God of course!). If you’re stressed, sad, angry, worried, scared, and so on, you can calm yourself by focusing on appreciating the good things in your life. If you’re stressed out at work, take a little time and gaze at pictures of your children, spouse, or pets. If you’re sad because a loved one passed away, take some time to focus on happy memories you have of that person and how blessed you are to have been able to know him or her. If you’re angry at someone for being mean to you or to someone you love, think about the people in your life who make you happy, and how the mean person probably acts the way she does because she is an unhappy person who does not appreciate the good things in her life, causing her to have a negative view of everything and everyone around her.
I find that it’s easy to overlook beauty in everyday things. We look at the people and things around us without really seeing them because we’re so busy chugging along with our daily routines. Make it a point to look around you and notice things, like how your coworker has beautiful eyes, the neighbor’s garden is full of gorgeous flowers, your child has your father’s nose, the poster at work has a really cool logo on it, etc. It doesn’t have to be just physical beauty. Notice the way your spouse’s voice softens when he or she speaks to your children, the way your coworker goes out of his way to help people when they have computer issues, how your dog is always excited to see you when you come home from work, etc. When you take the time to really notice these things, you will really appreciate them, which will cause you to be calmer and more content, and feel more fulfilled.
An assignment:
Look around you and find five beautiful things you hadn’t really noticed before. Really gaze at them and examine the details that fit together to make an amazing whole. Right now I am sitting at my desk and I see a tissue box that has a design on it in white and shades of gray that looks like transparent leaves overlapping each other. I’m eating popcorn, and the shape of each piece is really interesting, how it has so many bumps and curls to it. I have a form that was faxed in with a signature on it and the fax machine printed the signature with a really cool texture, kind of like it was written with tiny fingerprints. I can see my coworker’s plant, which has cool striped dark and light green leaves with burgundy undersides. I can also see her candy jar that has four different colors of Easter egg-shaped candies in it—somehow the way the candies fell into the jar, the eggs of the same colors kind of fell together forming lines and swirls among the other colors.
With each person you meet, find something beautiful about him or her. When you drive to and from work, try to find something new along the way that you hadn’t noticed before. Think of each person in your life, even if you don’t enjoy being around some of them, and find something good about each one, even if it’s that an angry person made you realize how happy you are.
Love this, Rachel!
ReplyDelete