Gratitude And Perspectives

WISDOM NUGGET:  "As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them."
                                                                                       - John F. Kennedy

Source: Photo Pin

 
When asked to list what he was thankful for, one little boy wrote, "My glasses!" "That's good," said the teacher, "they help you see better". "No," responded the child, "I’m thankful for my glasses because they keep the other boys from hitting and fighting with me and the girls from kissing me."
From the foregoing, this young chap clearly understood the meaning of gratitude. Your perspective is key to living a life of gratitude. A glass for instance, containing half the volume of water, can either be said to be half full or half empty, depending the way you look at it. Our perspective to the issues of life determines whether we will end up as grouchy, grumpy people. But much more than that, it’s amazing, how beautiful life can be, in a world where gratitude is a core value and an integral part of our lifestyle. It is quite mind blowing, how a simple act of gratitude can turn someone’s life around.

A lady worked as a janitor in a company for many years. Now being a janitor is a pretty thankless job, which many of us might consider as a "dirty" job or at least pretty far down the totem pole. In other words, probably not a whole lot of fun. It happened the company changed owners. Within a few days, the new owner wrote a personal thank you card to every employee in the company. He had his assistant go around and hand them out. When this lady received and opened her card, she burst into tears. She asked if she could be excused from work. Thinking she was sick, she was allowed leave for the rest of the day. What the story was - they found out a few days later - she had never received even a verbal thank you from the previous owners and management - much less a personal card. She had worked there 20 or 30 years! So she was really touched when the new owner sent her a card of appreciation. More so, she had been thinking the change of ownership was probably a good time to quit. Beyond that, she was planning to let them know that very day. Which she didn't. Because the little time, the little extra effort of the owner to send a little business thank you card, helped the lady change her mind.

Melody Beattie couldn’t have put in a better light whe he said, "gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend."