Ray’s Daily
September 23, 2019
Gratitude is the memory of the heart.
Jean Baptiste Massieu
There is hardly a day that goes by that I don’t realize how fortunate my wife and I are for the help and comfort provided by our children. They manage our health care, provide us needed living supplies and much more. I don’t think we could live as independently as we do if it was not for the help we get from them and their spouses.
We also benefit from living in a supportive senior community. It is a place where staff and friends look out for each other. I find that it is also important to let people know how grateful we are to have them in our life.
Here are some excerpts I took from Psychology Today that I strongly agree with.
The Benefits of Gratitude
Feeling grateful starts with an acknowledgement that life is good and rewarding. Such positive thinking can be motivating. Waking in the morning and repeating, “It’s great to be alive,” is a good place to start. This bountiful emotion that life is abundant makes a person feel grateful toward loved ones, colleagues, animals and, of course, mother nature. There is also utility in gratitude such as making amends or solving issues at hand. Reciprocity is not needed in feeling gratitude, which has a karmic quality in and of itself. The receiver is compelled to pay the goodness forward, generating positivity all around.
How Being Grateful Boosts Health
What are we grateful for? Keeping a journal filled with such a list can boost one’s well-being and overall health. Focusing on one’s blessings feeds the brain’s reward system and ups mood and feelings of pleasure. Because feeling grateful can mean the experience of more positive emotions and less negative ones, gratitude leads a person to make healthier life choices overall. Negative moods, for example, affect what we choose to eat; low mood breaks down a person’s emotional regulation and, in turn, leads us to make fewer healthier choices. Positive mood, on the contrary, motivates a person to keep a healthier diet as well as deploying better self-care, in general.
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The unthankful heart… discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!
Henry Ward Beecher
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A man said to his wife one day, “I don’t know how you can be so stupid and so beautiful all at the same time.” The wife responded, “Allow me to explain it to you. God made me beautiful so you would be attracted to me; God made me stupid so I would be attracted to you!”
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“In a restaurant choose a table near a waiter.”
Yiddish Proverb
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The math teacher posed this problem, “A wealthy man dies and leaves ten million dollars. One-fifth is to go to his wife, one-fifth is to go to his son, one-sixth to his butler, and the rest to charity. Now, what does each get?”
The savvy student answered, “A lawyer!”
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Success never rests. On your worst days, be good. And on your best days, be great. And on every other day, get better.
Carmen Mariano
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The U.S. Treasury announced it is recalling all of the Alabama quarters that are part of its program featuring quarters from each state. The quarters are being issued in the order in which the various states joined the U.S.
“We are recalling all the new Alabama quarters that were recently issued,” Treasury Undersecretary Jack Shackleford said Monday.
“This action is being taken after numerous reports that new quarters will not work in parking meters, toll booths, vending machines, pay phones, or other coin-operated devices.”
“The problem lies in a design flaw,” Shackleford said.
The winning design was submitted by an Auburn University student.
“Apparently,” Shackleford said, “the duct tape holding the two dimes and nickel together keeps jamming the coin-operated devices.”
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Keep a green tree alive in your heart and a songbird may come to sing there.
Chinese Proverb
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A factory owner said to a store owner, “Thank you, Mr. Smith, for your patronage. I wish I had twenty customers like you.”
“Gosh, it’s nice to hear that, but I’m kind of surprised,” admitted Smith. “You know that I argue every bill and always pay late.”
The factory owner said, “I’d still like twenty customers like you. The problem is, I have two hundred.”
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One nice thing about egotists: They don’t talk about other people!
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“Look at ME!” boasted the fit old man to a group of young people. “Every morning I do fifty push-ups, fifty sit-ups and walk two miles. I’m fit as a fiddle! And you want to know why? I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t stay up late, and I don’t chase after women!”
He smiled at them, teeth white, eyes glittering, “And tomorrow, I’m going to celebrate my 95th birthday!”
“Oh, really?” drawled one of the young onlookers, “How?”
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“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”
Immanuel Kant
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A fellow was walking along a country road when he came upon a farmer working in his field. The man called out to the farmer, “How long will it take me to get to the next town?”
The farmer didn’t answer. The guy waited a bit and then started walking again.
After the man had gone about a hundred yards, the farmer yelled out, “About 20 minutes.”
“Thank you. But why didn’t you tell me that when I asked you?”
“Didn’t know how fast you could walk.”
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There is not a more pleasing exercise of the mind than gratitude. It is accompanied with such an inward satisfaction that the duty is sufficiently rewarded by the performance.
Joseph Addison
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Ray Mitchell
Indianapolis, Indiana
Management is not responsible for duplicates from previous dailies. The editor is somewhat senile.
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