Thankfulness is a State-of-mind

“If you want to turn your life around, try thankfulness. It will change your life mightily.”
-Gerald Good

What if you woke up today with only what you were thankful for yesterday?

As I read something similar to this question this morning it got my head moving in the direction of what thankfulness really means and how it’s the most attainable pursuit in our present world.

At its core, thankfulness is a choice and a state-of-mind, all at the same time. 

We spend so much time as humans thinking about what we want next that we often times forget that the blessings of today were yesterday’s hopes and answered prayers.  We have become a body of people that continually look towards the future in hopes that it will produce greener pastures that we usually forget to stop and smell the roses.

In all of our lives there are so many reasons to be thankful… whether it be for a roof over our head, food in our stomachs, clean drinking water, some money in our bank account, family, friends, love, or the ability to be free and to choose what we want for ourselves every day.  There are literally hundreds of things that we can be thankful for every day of our lives if we but stop for a second to think about them.

How can we expect to live another day hoping for life to be better if we can’t give thanks for where we are currently?

How can we expect to be thankful for life tomorrow if we can’t be thankful for life today?

When I answered the question for myself that was posed at the top of this writing I was startled to think that I would have woken up this morning without a family, starving, with no place to live, without any friends, and cold and damp somewhere with no money to my name what so ever.  That’s not a reality I want to be part of.

The key to living a life where the sun always shines is by first realizing just how truly blessed we all are in our own ways.  Being thankful for things in our world is a choice we must make everyday, for if we don’t evaluate what’s positive in our life on a constant measure, we’ll be unprepared to acknowledge new opportunities for added happiness.

Take some time today to ask yourself what you’re thankful for.  Whatever answers you come up with will be the benchmark for staying in a mindset of thankfulness for days to come.  Don’t let little blessings go un-thanked, don’t let little drops of love go unnoticed, and for heaven’s sake, don’t allow another person’s act of love go by without as much as a smile and a quiet thanks from you.

The act of taking a minute to think about what’s positive and beneficial in your life will lead to a continued state of thankfulness that will naturally take over your entire being.  To live in a state of thankfulness takes no more effort than constantly acknowledging what you have in your life to be thankful for, and if you’re like me, there are plenty of beautiful gifts in my world to be appreciative of.

When you start living in a state of thankfulness you’ll start enjoying life more, you’ll start having more fun with people and you’ll realize the little steps we take throughout the day will inherit more beauty and meaning.

Choose to be thankful today and you’ll uncontrollably start wearing a smile more, you’ll be prettier, more fulfilled, happier, and better prepared for the blessings that are waiting to enter your life tomorrow.