Page 23 - Power of Gratitude

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before you go to sleep. Expressing gratitude first thing in the morning

sets the pace for your day. Have you come across people who sit on their
deck with a mug of tea or coffee at dawn and give thanks for everything?

All they could think of at that serene time of the day was the bright
new day, the beauty of the sun, the clouds, birds, sounds, quiet, their

immediate family, and so on.

Attitude is a virtue that cannot be concealed. More like a cloud of

smoke, it will always escape and find expression, regardless of the
situation we are in; everywhere we go, we often do so, taking with us

our attitude. And usually, our life encounters are determined by our
attitude. Attitude is the aura around our individuality that opens doors

to us. Stories of how a lot of people have put their little beginnings
behind through the simple principle of good attitude abound around us

everywhere today. A good understanding of the laws of gratitude will
often convince you that if you make gratitude your daily attitude, that

you are toeing the right track to unlocking doors.

According to F. Kennedy, as we express our gratitude, we must never

forget that the utmost gratitude is not to utter words but to live by them
by our defining actions of love. That implies that we make the choice

of being kind to people around us each day of our lives. The attitude of
gratitude has always proven to be a precursor for keeping in good moral

standing. Those that are not grateful, we are told, will be miserable, will
not go the heaven, or will not receive more. It should, therefore, not be

taken to mean that we have to be grateful so that we can get something
else. If this is our mindset for being grateful, then we just might be

heading for a set up for failure.

To be truly grateful for something means that we value it, appreciate

it, and have a genuine unconditional love for it. Gratitude, as a virtue,
is, of course, the exact opposite of truthfully appreciating something

or valuing it. Faking gratitude in words or even with forced emotion is
really another form of deception. You won’t be crucified if you choose

to call it pretense. If you are grateful, you live within it; you do not need
to advertise it. Not that there is anything wrong with publicizing it,