The Best thing in life is

Edited to add: This post was featured as one of the really really good entries on BlogAdda; http://blog.blogadda.com/2012/10/26/write-over-the-weekend-wow-oct-26-2012

I am so thrilled; this is the perfect start to the weekend :-)

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda


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The Best thing in life is the power of gratitude. They say that life works on the principle of the Law of Attraction. You attract into your life what you are constantly thinking of or what you send out into the universe. Given that, would it not be wonderful if we were to practise gratitude each and every single day of our life? Just imagine how enriched and happy our life would be.

As Marcel Proust, the French novelist said, “Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” While on the face of it, to be grateful appears quite simple and easy it is not so. Burdened as we are with the travails of day-to-day living, we seldom make it a point to express gratitude, that too, explicitly and precisely.

It might be easy to say, I am grateful for my life. But to put it into exact words and explain what exactly I am grateful for could be a difficult task. Also, as we cultivate the habit of gratitude consciously, we will find that life becomes a lot simpler and its burdens a lot easier to bear.

Some might feel that expressing gratitude is a formality; a mere societal convention. However, think of the times when someone has expressed gratitude to you. Did you not feel happy about it? Did you not go through that day absolutely elated and jumping with joy? Then, why not give someone else a chance to experience those same feelings. Expressing gratitude for a thing or to a person does not take away anything from you; au contraire, it enables you to make someone happy about something they did for you. Is that not a win-win situation?

Recently, organizations have also started realizing the power of gratitude. This is the genesis of the Appreciation Day or Applaud Cards at work where you appreciate someone for the good work they are doing or applaud your colleague for the traits they are displaying at work. Not only does it encourage them to continue doing what they are doing, it also leaves you with a positive feeling at the end of the day. And, any action that does that is highly recommended for one and all.

Beginning today, I would urge each one of you to keep a gratitude journal. You need to note down the five things that have happened in your day today that you are grateful for. While initially you might need to think and re-think about the five things, later, it would come almost naturally to you. You would also be surprised at how peaceful and calm you would have become in your dealings with people and how you would suddenly start attracting all the goodness in your life that you have always wanted.

Finally, it would do all of us a lot of good to heed the Nobel Peace Prize winner Albert Schweitzer’s words, "At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us."