Thankfulness

Hello all.




I want to share one of my personal struggles with you to highlight the power of a very simple principle. I am sure most of us equate money with happiness. Sure we have all heard the notion, "money does not buy happiness", but let us be honest: being broke sucks and it is so hard to be happy when you feel like you are drowning in a sea of bills. I have been working to create healthy financial circumstances in my life; but it has not happened. I keep hoping that a large sum of money will magically appear to help me rise above the water... that a magical fairy will appear and wave a magic wand and make the bills disappear... that I will win the lottery... that I will suddenly have a house of my own... that my business attempts would work... etc. etc. etc.



The point is I am looking for a windfall to solve my problems; the reason being that my problems are so huge that only a windfall, in the form of a tidal wave could clean it up. I honestly think that this one concept is the source of all unhappiness. We have a problem and we look for windfall solutions. Before I go on a tangent, I will commit to the windfall being the topic of another conversation.



When I first began creating my new life circumstances a small, seemingly insignificant concept kept whispering in my ear. I encountered this concept in various places... it popped up constantly... I could not ignore it. But I did ignore it, or at least I tried. I used it when things were really bad, but when things would go well I would forget it. I did not realize the power of continued use. I finally got it today. I read somewhere that the key to happiness was thankfulness. We will never find happiness if we constantly focus on what we do not have. We will find that we are so blessed in abundance if we will just focus on what we do have rather than what we don't.



Where you put your attention you will gravitate toward. If you focus on what you do not have, then you will never have enough. If you focus on what you do have, then you will always have exactly what you need. I remember my driver's ed teacher telling the class that if we ever found ourselves in a spin out, a tire blow out, hydroplaning, or something like that, then we needed to focus on the road and not the closeness of the guard rail. He said that if we focused on the guard rail then we would inevitably head toward it because we stear toward the direction our eyes are focused.



I am giving myself a challenge. Every night before I go to bed I will recite what I am thankful for. I will do this in both the good and bad times. I will keep it up. I am tempted to say that I will try it for a period of time like 30 days, but then I am using it for my own gain. That would mean that I am not truly thankful just greedy. I will work to create a new habit for myself, one where I will be in the habit of giving thanks every night for all my blessings of the day.