This one thing has everything to do with the way you look at your life and how you treat others and I think that it can make a huge difference internally to the way you look at yourself and those around you
Gratitude, thankfulness, and forgiveness will change your life
We all live a life judging others, judging ourselves and trying to change people to conform with the views and opinions that we have. Well maybe not always but often anyway. We all know what is right and wrong for certain things and with others we are not so sure. That’s just human nature. The times I see that in myself are in the times that I “think” that I am sure of the truth and at the same time I find I don’t judge or try to change opinions in places that I do not have a hard and fast view.
I have found though that it is important to break down the ego and look at gratitude, thankfulness, and forgiveness as much as I can so that I can be open to change and learn more from others, this brings me to a higher, better consiousness and a far better place to accept myself and see my own flaws.
The ego is the enemy more than anything. So how do we do these things?
Gratitude – To have gratitude we have to see where we are and what we have in our lives that is good. Everyone can harp on their weight, bad job, unsupportive people in their lives, but really this does not ever help us to move forward. Instead try and make sure that you are always and only looking at the best of things in your life. Sure you can change things in your life but if you are always looking at the crap in your life it is hard to move forward.
So always be grateful for the great things, situation, and people in your life as an anchor. Many people use a gratitude journal or just write down once a day the 10 things that they are grateful for at that very moment
Thankfulness – In all areas of your life you have to promote the people and situations that you are in at that very moment. This is really thankfulness. I personally look at gratitude as being the whole of my life and thankfulness at the little things at that instant to be thankful for. The sunny day, the guy that lets me in in traffic, the kids listening to me, and especially a big hug from my wife. Thankfulness is critical to making sure that you understand that life is not going through the motions but is instead a fantastic bunch of little situations and events that make a life full.
Forgiveness – This is a hard thing for most people, me included. Forgiveness simply means that no matter what happens bad in your life you are willing to forgive the person that did it. You can’t hold onto anger, fear and resentment in your life as it will harden you and suck out the great emotions in life and instead fill you with sadness and hatred.
So that guy that bumps ahead of you in line, he’s probably in a big hurry, forgive. The coworker that puts you down in a meeting, they have ego issues, forgive. The kids drinking next door and keeping the neighborhood awake late into a Saturday night, they are having fun and don’t even realize people are hoping to sleep, forgive them.
Forgiveness is the toughest of the three here because you are hurt by the situation and often the other person is not at all. Forgiveness as I said though is critical because you can never move forward if you are resenting others, believe me I tried.
For anyone that is a Christian or Jewish, or Muslim this is not news. Religion has taught these truths for thousands of years but that fact is that most people don’t actually practice these in their day to day lives. I am sure, actually I can promise you, that If you integrate gratitude, thankfulness, and forgiveness into your daily life if will really change you and help you move forward.