Gratitude and Happiness

So much has been made of the attitude of gratitude. I wholeheartedly concur. When I am in the place or state of gratitude, I have an actual warm feeling in the center of my being that it is almost palpable.

In other words, this experience of appreciativeness can help you move toward happiness and greater and greater happiness. It is like a pleasant adventure on a tread mill that your life-attitude keeps moving along. But the exercise of using this treadmill is not tiring. In fact, it is invigorating.

And, to jump metaphors rapidly, this treadmill running is or can be in the background, like an app running in the background on your computer or tablet while you do something else. This running-in-the-background app keeps everything else running more smoothly even if you are not aware of the process at times.

To continue to jump metaphors, gratitude is like the energy you get from regular exercise of the body. I know from personal experience that if I don't exercise regularly, my energy levels decline. I guess the metabolism boost I get from physical exertion extends beyond the actual time of activity. Sort of charges my internal battery and I "live" off the juice well beyond the previous recharge.

Your life of happiness runs off of gratefulness. To be happy, I believe, is the meaning of your life. One of the results of being happy is developing and cultivating a degree of appreciativeness in your life. It is an opportunity to literally feel something positive in your gut when events or feelings come together in such a way in your life that you are almost overwhelmed by a sense of thankfulness.

This is thankfulness well beyond the feeling you may generate within yourself at a time such as Thanksgiving. You may stop and contemplate all the things, events and people in your life that cause you to deploy glad feelings within yourself. This is good as far as it goes.

But I am talking about a perception even beyond this sense of thankfulness. Let me call it a sense of "all is right." Not some blind pollyanna optimism. Not just positive thinking without any basis in fact. On the contrary, this is when everything seems to fit in a cosmic and imperishable way. Like a galaxy-large jigsaw puzzle with a bazillion pieces that all suddenly fall into perfect place and the feeling of completeness is almost overtaking.

You get this feeling of completeness by looking for it and by making it so within yourself. Let's face it, the world looks fragmented to everyone most of the time. The Information Age makes it no less so. Ten minutes on the Internets and you can be overwhelmed with information about almost every topic there is. One half hour surfing the cable news programs and you may be overloading once again.

When you make quiet time for yourself and contemplate all that is good and complete in your life, you can grasp this feeling of gratitude for yourself. Yes, you make your own gratitude; it is not given to you and you don't need to earn it. It is there for the plucking. You decide to be grateful.

When you decide a number of times, or it may happen the first time you resolve to be appreciative, a feeling of deep joy will well up in your gut in a physical way. Being grateful is a matter of practice - like anything else good in your life.

For what are you grateful within your life? When you decide to, you can and will be grateful for everything. Yes, everything. But you must decide to do this for yourself and for the reinforcement of your own happiness. Mentally name one thing or person or event in your life for which you are grateful. Go ahead; do it now. Let this be the first step in your life of gratitude and happiness.

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