Ray's Daily

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”

Marcel Proust

 In my country we will be celebrating our Thanksgiving Holiday in a few days. It is our annual opportunity to inventory the good things in our lives and to take time to appreciate all we have, especially when we realize that far too many have little or nothing. I hope though that besides being thankful we will also be grateful, grateful for having those we love, grateful for a place to live, grateful for the food we have to eat and especially grateful to those who have contributed so much to our lives through their friendship. I know I appreciate all of you and the meaning you add to my life.

You know appreciation is a wonderful thing, if we take the time to appreciate we often find the real beauty that is almost always available to us. It is the little things so often unnoticed that provide the most comfort to our existence, just stop once in a while and think what your life would be like if some of the things we take for granted were gone. I also have found that sharing your appreciation with others is heartwarming.

Here is an article that I pulled from the Positively Present blog some time ago that provides us tips for letting gratitude enrich our lives.

Making good use of your gratitude

Use gratitude to center yourself. This is probably the greatest use I’ve found for gratitude. Whenever I’m feeling upset or angry or frustrated or down, I think about the things I am grateful for and I feel much, much better. It really is a great tool to use to tackle some of the hardest emotions and I find that it almost always snaps me out of whatever funk I’ve found myself in.

Use gratitude to live in the moment. When I’m struggling to live in the moment (as I often am!), I find that being thankful really helps to bring me into the present. It’s easy to get caught up thinking about the past or worrying about the future, but when I look around and start thinking of all the things I have to be grateful for right now, I find that I’m really, truly living in the moment.

Use gratitude to enhance relationships. Nothing makes a relationship better than when you are truly grateful for the other person. Sure, all relationships have ups and downs, but if you keep gratitude in mind no matter what you’re going through, you’re more likely to have a much better relationship. Be grateful for the people in your life and you’ll find that your appreciation comes through in your words and actions.

Use gratitude to motivate yourself. Sometimes I find that it’s hard to get motivated and I wonder what I can really contribute to the world. That’s when I start using gratitude again. Once I start thinking about all of the things I’m thankful for — including my own abilities — I feel a lot more inspired. Being grateful can motivate you to believe in yourself and it can also inspire you to look around you and see all that you have to offer the world.

Use gratitude to overcome hurdles. Life is pretty hard sometimes, but when you find yourself focusing on what you’re grateful for, all of the trials you have to face become more manageable. I can’t say that gratitude is a cure all for every problem, but it really does help to put things in perspective when you’re going through a tough time. Next time you’re feeling down, think of all the things you’re grateful for. I guarantee you’ll feel inspired!

Use gratitude to improve your health. I’m not a doctor or a scientist, but I’ve read on more than one occasion that being grateful can actually improve your physical health. I don’t have any statistics to back up this claim, but I can say that gratitude greatly reduces my stress level, which ultimately makes me a much healthier person. One thing I know for sure: gratitude certainly can’t hurt your health, so it’s worth a try to start thinking grateful thoughts.

Clearly, being grateful has some pretty sweet benefits. There are so many things we should all be grateful for and even though it can be really, really hard at times to think about being thankful, it really does make even the worst situations more bearable. I really believe that having a grateful attitude gives us the power to turn any day — even a really bad one! — into a day worth celebrating.

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He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”

Epictetus

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Wanting to lose weight, a woman placed a picture of a shapely, pinup model INSIDE her refrigerator to remind her of her goal. It worked like a charm as the woman discovered that she had lost ten pounds in the first month of using this method. The downside to this was that her husband spent so much time going into the fridge to look at the picture that he ended up gaining fifteen pounds!

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Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.

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The showers in my daughter’s dorm turned scalding hot whenever a toilet was flushed. To warn others, residents would yell out, “Flushing!” each time they flushed the toilets. During one of my daughter’s visits home, a friend stopped by to chat for a while.  I was explaining how my daughter was acting more distant now that she was in college, and that she didn’t tell me all about her life the way she used to. Suddenly we heard my daughter call out from the bathroom, “Flushing!”

“Wow!” said my friend, “How much more do you want to know?”

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“Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Rosenbloom are pleased to announce the birth of their son, Dr. Jonathan Rosenbloom.”

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A blonde was summoned to court to appear as a witness in a lawsuit. The prosecutor opened his questioning with, “Where were you the night of August 24th?”

“Objection!” said the defense attorney. “Irrelevant!”

“Oh, that’s okay,” said the blonde from the witness stand.”I don’t mind answering the question.”

“I object!” the defense said again.

“No, really,” said the blonde. “I’ll answer.”

The judge ruled: “If the witness insists on answering, there is no reason for the defence to object.”

So the prosecutor repeated the question: “Where were you the night of August 24th?”

The blonde replied brightly, “I don’t know.”

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Don’t follow in my footsteps, because I run into a lot of walls.

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A college student wrote a letter home, “Dear folks, I feel miserable because I have to keep writing for money. I feel ashamed and unhappy. I have to ask for another hundred, but every cell in my body rebels. I beg on bended knee that you forgive me.

Your son, Marvin.

 P.S.I felt so terrible I ran after the mailman who picked this up in the box at the corner. I wanted to take this letter and burn i.e. prayed to God that I could get it back. But it was too late.”

A few days later he received a letter from his father. It said, “Your prayers were answered. Your letter never came!”

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“Some people grumble that roses have thorns; I am grateful that thorns have roses.”

Alphonse Karr

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Stay well, do good work, and have fun.

Ray Mitchell

Indianapolis, Indiana

Management is not responsible for duplicates from previous dailies. The editor is somewhat senile.

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