Don’t forget to give thanks!

This week, Americans are celebrating their Thanksgiving holiday. I am not American but I love Thanksgiving because I find the premise and practice of focusing on our life’s blessings and fortunes, as well as expressing gratitude to the people we respect and love, to be extremely healthy, empowering, and necessary to all people in all cultures and geographies.I recently came across a quote from Swindoll that is apropos to this topic: “Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.”

This quote represents such truth!

On a daily basis, we encounter circumstances and situations that give us the opportunity to choose our outlook, mood, and course of action. Sometimes we relate to our circumstances as misfortunate, and, as a result, we feel upset or defeated. At other times, we relate to what life dealt us as fortune and therefore we feel victorious, grateful, and energized.

When we are stuck in a rut and view the glass as half empty, this perspective colors our entire experience of things. Have you ever noticed that when we are upset about one thing, we tend to see other things that are not working, too?

However, when we focus on the glass being half full, this perspective uplifts, empowers, and energizes us. We see all the good things and opportunities around us.

We are often so consumed by the minutia of our daily life that we forget that we really have a choice about how we view and react to things around us.

The reason I love Thanksgiving so much is that this holiday is a designated period in the year when we attempt to deliberately be positive and only focus on the good things around us– our blessings, fortunes and things we are grateful for.

Too many people spend too much of their time being negative about things.

The world would be a better place if more people expressed more gratitude more often.

May we all use this holiday as an “excuse” to start fully giving thanks to everything and everyone in our life that we love and respect.

Don’t take any of it for granted.

Regardless of your nationality, I wish you a great Thanksgiving!