Today’s thought is to be grateful. No matter how bad you think things are, you can always be grateful. Did you wake up this morning? Be grateful. Do you have a place to sleep? Be grateful. Do you have clothes to wear? Be grateful.

If you stop and think about all the things you do have and be grateful for those things, the things you don’t have may not seem so important.

While you’re thinking about that, think about the difference between “need” and “want.” Dictionary.com defines “need” as a “requirement, necessary duty, or obligation.” It defines “want” as “to feel a need or a desire for; wish for.” There is a big difference. When you “need” something, it is necessary for you to live. You NEED food, you NEED some kind of clothing (mostly because you will be arrested otherwise), you NEED water, you NEED some kind of shelter. However, you WANT dessert, you WANT expensive, fancy restaurant meals, you WANT designer duds, you WANT the biggest, most ostentatious house on the block. You don’t NEED the WANTS. 

I’ve said before that I have worked really hard for a long time and so I do give in to my WANTS from time to time. Lately on my way to work, there has been an obviously homeless man near my office. He is dirty, unshaven, and has matted hair. Worst of all he is barefoot . . . in Arizona . . . where it has been over 110 degrees most days and where asphalt is even higher temperature. He is still living and breathing and I’m sure he would feel that he has many things to be thankful for. It puts things into perspective for me in my nice car with my expensive cell phone listening to my iPod in decent clothes and air conditioning on my way to a job that pays me well and allows me to have nice things. Since I’ve seen him two or three times so far, I will find an old pair of my husband’s shoes and throw them in my car in case they might fit him. And, yes, I’m grateful for what I have and I love to share some of that with others.

There are many ways to keep track of your gratitude. There are journals, there are apps, there is pen and paper, there are friends, and there is what I end up doing–when I first lay down to go to sleep, I think about my day and come up with three things I’m grateful for. Unfortunately for me, the time between my head hitting the pillow and being asleep is not always enough to name the three things, but I think a lot of that is thinking about happy thoughts as I drift off. The advantage to actually writing it down somewhere is that you can review it later–particularly when you are having a bad day.

At work, I have a “warm fuzzies file” where I keep particularly nice emails, cards, reviews, anything that makes me feel good. There are many times when I’m having a bad day and listing the pros and cons of why I do what I do when I dig out that file and remember that there are people who appreciate me and what I do and that the pros list is much longer.

Just remember there is always, always something to be thankful for. As long as you are breathing, you should be grateful for all the little things. Thinking about all of those will keep your mind so busy, you might just forget the one thing that was upsetting you. Just. Be. Grateful.