Why be grateful?

 

This is the time of year that there are many people, cards and media telling us that we need to be grateful for the good things in our lives. Why do we need to be so grateful?Gratitude

The major religions all have gratefulness at their heart and even for the non-religious, the Benedictine monk, David Steindl-Rast, who is noted for his study of the interaction between science and spirituality, says it is simple.

“Gratefulness equals happiness”.

We all have something in common says Steindl-Rast in the following video clip of his TED talk. We all want to be happy. How we imagine our happiness obviously differs between different people but the desire to be happy is pretty universal.

A lot of people imagine that once they are happy, they will be grateful. However Steindl-Rast asserts that it is actually the other way round, gratefulness leads to happiness.

In David Steindl-Rast’s TED talk (which you can see via the clip below), he mentions that some people who seem to have all the material things and makings of being happy, are not. Whereas others who have terrible occurrences in their lives and reasons to be miserable, can actually be very happy.

In this video, we see that the choice to be happy is in our hands. The key is becoming aware that we can be grateful for the gift of each new moment and indeed, each new moment we have is the greatest and most valuable gift that can be given to us…

 

 

An interesting concept. Remembering to be grateful will increase happiness. 🙂 This post Direct your Attitude to attract better things, also highlights how we can become aware of our thoughts to bring about different emotions and situations.

Here’s to a new year of your health and happiness and of course, gratitude!