THE SCIENCE OF GRATITUDE.

“To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven.”
Johannes A. Gartner

Gratitude is a part of the happiness holy grail. Compared with those who aren’t practicing gratitude, scientists have found that people practicing gratitude:

Are considerably more enthusiastic, interested, and determined
Feel 25% happier
Are more likely to be both kind and helpful to others

Who doesn’t want these things?

Over the years, I have learned that gratitude is a SKILL, like learning to speak French or playing table tennis. It needs to be taught, and it needs to be practiced consciously and deliberately.

Practicing gratitude can be blissfully simple: just count the things in your life that you feel thankful for. A lot of people are retarded in growth simply because they don’t know to say a simple thank you. During my stayed in Ghana, I have understood the power of thank you. Average man or woman in that country can collect all you have by saying ‘meda ashe’. When a Ghanaian rendered a service to you, they’ll tell you ‘meda ashe’ after you have paid for the service. Not only in that aspect, when they give you something, they won’t hesitate to show appreciation for you collecting. The same is visible in the life of the people of Benin Republic using ‘merci.’ What majority don’t understand is that, when you appreciate those who have done something either in minute or big form, you are indirectly telling the person to do more and I must confess to you, they will surely do more because you have shown gratitude for what you have received.

Some people just aren’t that grateful, and they really don’t want to be poked and prodded to practice gratitude. Some people can’t say thank you to their creator for the gift of life let alone creatures like them. How often do you appreciate people in your life? Have you shown appreciation to someone this week, month or today? Don’t you think that bus driver deserves appreciation for not driving you into gutter or for being nice and courteous? What of the woman or the lady who cook the delicious meal? Yes, he or she called you, did you remember to say thank you, after he or she dropped the call? Some people are in the mortuary, police custody, hospital but here you’re reading this article, don’t you think you need to say ‘THANK YOU GOD.’

When you learn how to show gratitude, you get more than your expectation. Try it today and see what you get in return.

Thank you for reading, and please pass this article along.

To your ultimate success, MA.