I love this line, which comes from a quote by Melodie Beattie, which reads in its entirety:
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.”
And I would add this thought — that without gratitude, you can turn any paradise into hell.
Without gratitude, you will always walk away from the table still starving — no matter what measure of abundance has been laid before you.
Without gratitude, every job is the worst job on earth, every spouse is deficient, every friend lets you down, every home is on the wrong street, every gift is the wrong size, every novel is full of typos, every mattress is uncomfortable, every cup of coffee is too weak.
Without gratitude, every choice you ever made will always feel like the wrong choice.
Without gratitude, summers will always be too hot; winters will always be too cold. The music will always be too loud, the movie will always suck, the teenagers will always be too rude.
Without gratitude, people who vote or worship differently from you will always be monsters in your eyes. Without gratitude, you will always feel you were born into the wrong family. Without gratitude, the waitress will always be too slow, and you will always get the worst seat on the bus. Without gratitude, every driver on the road except you is an idiot.
Without gratitude, life is The Misery.
These three things are so true…
1) There is no happiness without gratitude
2) There is no transformation without self-accountability
3) There is no peace without forgiveness
But first among those — the alchemy of all alchemies — is gratitude.
If we learn nothing else while we’re here, then, we must learn how to say THANK YOU.
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