What are You Thankful for?

A few weeks ago, I was talking with someone and she asked me what I was thankful for. I replied with \”I\’m thankful for my family.\” In my mind, my family was a good thing to be thankful for, but lol, she wasn\’t impressed.

She said, \”Well, it\’s good to be thankful for your family, but they are not here with you. So what are you thankful for that happened today? Because it\’s important to be able to be thankful or happy about things that happen in your everyday life.\”

This got me thinking, and I realised that, although generally, I am thankful for many things in my life, I find it hard to see and acknowledge good things in my day-to-day life/activities.

I\’ve come to learn that in life, it\’s important to find joy in the small things. It is important that you don\’t let situations you go through steal your peace and happiness. Life happens in stages and seasons. Sometimes you have a lot of sunshine, and on those days, it\’s easy to say \”Oh wow, God is good.\” However, what happens when the clouds cover the sun and the winds roar? How do you deal and overcome those situations?

All my life, people have told me the usual \”give thanks in all situations,\” but I never understood it. To me, it felt like people were living in denial (in some cases they were tbh, but that\’s for another day!). However, I am starting to look at it differently. The idea of giving thanks in all situations isn\’t about pretending that x, y, and z aren\’t happening. Rather, it\’s about acknowledging the fact that although those things are happening, there is still something good in your life.

Deciding to be thankful shifts your focus from all the bad around you to the good. It isn\’t always easy to do, but it\’s necessary. Why? Well, sometimes the things that aren\’t going right might be overwhelming. They might make it seem like there is no hope. If you keep focusing on these situations and their accompanying thoughts, you might end up in a dark place. However, when you are able to look at all the darkness and find a beautiful lone star, that star might be enough to get you going.

It\’s easy to say \”well nothing good happened today\”, but the truth is, the things you are thankful for don\’t have to be massive things. You don\’t have to win the lotto or get a raise before being thankful. It can be over something as small as what you had for dinner, 

or an enlightening conversation you had.

Personally, I think choosing to be thankful daily, causes you to analyse your day and find the good in it. Take my day for example. I got to work this morning and everything that could go wrong went wrong. By lunchtime, I was ready to go home and cry. Ordinarily, I would have said, I really don\’t have anything to be thankful for. However, as I write this, I\’m looking out the window by my desk (it\’s a beautiful view) and counting all I have to be thankful for. I somehow got inspiration for this piece, (I was really stressed about what I would write about) I had a nice salad for lunch (I like good food) and to top it off, I found something I had been looking for to complete my experimental setup. So yea, maybe my day didn\’t start out great and maybe nothing happened the way I wanted it to, but I can, and I have chosen to look back and be thankful.

Moral of the story, choosing to be thankful is honestly the only way to keep going on at times. Some call it looking at the bright side, but irrespective of what it\’s called, it\’s a powerful tool for dealing with trying times.

Finally, lol, coming to this realisation prompted me to join a friend on twitter in finding something to be thankful for, every day. I have found it quite helpful (and challenging tbh) and today, I am inviting you to join me.  Use the hashtag #Iamthankful to post something you are thankful for every day. You can do it for a week, a month the rest of the year; it\’s entirely up to you! But give it a try!

Thank you for reading today\’s post! I hope you enjoyed it! You can follow me on Twitter @shayrunn

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