I'm grateful for this security guard job I'm doing, even though I find the work menial, tedious, way below my qualifications. It's generating just enough money to keep me from completely going under in foreclosure and bankruptcy. Thanks!

And I'm sure as hell grateful for the wedding videography business! It makes nice bonuses that put me well in the black some months!

Now...I want to supplement this with some short-form video production business like commercials.

I start out every day by simply being grateful I woke up! :-)

If we practice enough, to the point it's always at the tip of our consciousness, it's amazing how much we can find to be grateful for.

The two things that I've read about gratitude that have really stuck with me are:

"Gratitude is a powerful process for shifting your energy and bringing you more of what you want into your life. Be grateful for what you already have, and you will attract more good things."

and...

"It is not happy people that are thankful....it is thankful people who are happy!"


Good post JASG! Thanks!

Linda - love what you wrote ;)

I'm looking for the pod on free will, and ran across this. There was a time in my life that was very difficult. I reached out in what ever direction I could find to steady myself. I found great peace, during an incredibly turbulent time in the study of the TAO, meditation, hypnoses, breathing exercises, and keeping a gratitude list was of huge importance. I also helped my children make one for themselves. Every night at bed time we would write our list.. It was so amazing. When things calmed down, I gradually let those things go. It's like only eating turkey at Thanksgiving...why do we do that. I

Here's the Free Will podcast.

http://www.pathwaytohappiness.com/sound_files/pod15-free-will.mp3

About things calming down and discontinuing certain practices...

There will come a time when they are no longer needed. When in fact they can actually be more of an obstacle than helpful technique. Not sure if this applies to your gratitude list, but maybe at some point it will?

Two of my favorite quotes from Bruce Lee

Absorb what is useful, Discard what is not, Add what is uniquely your own.

"Again let me remind you Jeet Kune Do is just a name used, a boat to get one across, and once across it is to be discarded and not to be carried on one's back."

Love this posting and all the comments. =) I started the new year writing three things every day that I was grateful for and then kind of fell off the bandwagon. I need to get back on! Grateful I came acorss this group!

GREAT idea GAO! Doesn't take more than five minutes to write 3 things down each day that we are grateful for!! Thanks for the idea.

You're welcome! I actually have been dealing with some depression lately and think I am going to do this morning AND evening so that I am starting AND ending my days on a positive note. I am sure I can some up with six things to be grateful for every day, no matter how big or small they are. =)

Now that Spring is here, my heart, mind and soul is drawn towards a place I've been grateful for all the way back to my earliest memories.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvxpDSP88gQ

My very earliest memory is from a cabin on Loon Lake. It was midnight and we had one of those really old radios on the kitchen table, and the station was playing their signoff song. For some reason I was crying my eyes out in my mother's arms. She was sitting at the table rocking me in her arms.

The first time I told her of this memory she said it's impossible because I was only 6 months old, but it's the most vivid memory I have. Period.