Grateful for Gratitude

Every year I choose a word of the year, a word to give focus to my goals and ideas for the year ahead. This year’s word is Notice. Other words of the year have included savor, season and grow. You get the idea. Usually I begin to think about the next year word around Thanksgiving and choose it just in time for the new year.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, when we all count our blessings. It never crossed my mind that there are benefits to practicing gratitude until I came across the book The Gratitude Diaries by Janice Kaplan. Thanks to her I’ve already chosen my word for 2022

Grateful

According to Kaplan gratitude has many benefits including it makes you happier and rewards you with a more fulfilled life. Why don’t we practice it more often?

• At times we’re busy and don’t give something a second thought to something that made us smile.

• Over time we take for granted things that regularly bring us pleasure.

• We notice the negative rather than the positive.

• We loose sight of how much we depend on others even for little things.

And the list goes on…

It’s easy to forget to be thankful for little things.

• The person that held the elevator for me

• My husband who cooks dinner most nights

• The silly jokes that the kids tell us

• My favorite song or TV show

• I caught the typo before I pressed “print”

I don’t think I’ll wait until the new year. I’m grateful to have stumbled on The Gratitude Diaries!

#remarqueoftheday