So many beautiful things stem from a grateful heart. Service, forgiveness, happiness, peace, comfort. If you were to try to tell me that gratitude is a noun (I’m looking at you, Webster) then I can say with certainty, that you are mistaken. Gratitude is an action word, and the “noun” aspect of it can’t survive without the “verb”. Of course gratitude is also a feeling but it’s a feeling you act on, and you have to act on it in order to keep that feeling and avoid the downfalls of losing it, like not appreciating what you have until you’ve lost it.
It’s like my freshman creative writing professor wrote on the chalk board years ago, “Don’t tell me, show me” and in every way the image of those words pop into my head constantly with everything that I do, coupled with words from a hymn “because I have been given much, I too must give.” Which is why I try to talk less about how I feel and act more on those positive feelings. Because I am grateful for my family I try to be there for them and find ways to serve them. Because I’m grateful for my parents coming to this country and the freedoms this county provides, I try to act on that gratitude by taking advantage of my ability to progress in furthering my career as much as I can. Because I am grateful for education, I strove towards advanced degrees and continue to strive to learn and progress as much as I can.
We can absolutely tell people we are grateful for them and list the things we are grateful for in our journals, social media feeds, and on our Grateful Turkey, because that absolutely helps us cultivate a grateful heart. But why not show it? Why not magnify our gratitude by acting on it? Why not show our kids through action, when they might understand feelings but may understand better through example and practice.
Every November in our home, we try our best to harbor a heightened spirit of gratitude. For the most part, we focus on our Grateful Turkey as we count down to Thanksgiving. Each day we add a feather into our Grateful Turkey of one thing we are grateful for. We talk about that thing and we talk about how we can show our gratitude for it. So this month, we have decided to create a Gratitude Challenge along with our grateful turkey to maximize the meaning of the season, and we’d like to invite you to join us.
Each day will have a theme. For you, the theme may vary on different days but for the most part, should remain the same. When the theme of the day is a person, we will try to focus on a way to serve that person or show our love for them. It could be by helping them with something they need, making them a treat, forgiving them, or doing something to make their day brighter. When the theme is education, take a moment to learn something new or to use your knowledge and experience to help another. When the theme is nature, plant a seed.
Each day on my Instagram and Facebook story, I will be sharing different ways to show gratitude and hope that you’ll share your stories with me.
My hope and my goal has always been to make this world brighter not only for myself, my children, and my family, but for everyone in it. I truly believe that this world can change through simple acts of gratitude. If we spend our lifetime complaining about the good that lacks in this world, we can miss out on the opportunity to be the good in this world. If you look for the good in this world, I promise that you’ll find so much of it. But if you exhaust yourself with a heart of gratitude and act on it through service, you won’t have to look for the good in this world because you’ll be engulfed in it.
Beautiful words on gratitude!
Thank you!