We are surrounded by lack - the lack of money to buy gas for our cars, the lack of time to make more money and a lack of gratitude for what we have. Fortunate or not we can always be worse off than we are now and somebody always has it worse than we do. The best way for us to value our present day happiness and gratitude for what we have is to live up to our potential. I don't know any happy people who can't pay their mortgage yet they are happy. If you can't pay your mortgage you can't be happy but you can be grateful if you can afford to rent another house or an apartment. Happiness is earned and it will never come to you no matter how much money you have. Being grateful for what you have is mandatory if you are ever to be happy.
If you can't pay your mortgage it's a good time to change your life and change is always energizing. Energy is what you need in the face of a challenge that is detrimental to your values and threatens your lifestyle. If you can't pay your mortgage, not living in your dream home, or if you are currently renting, be grateful that you can start to improve your plight today. Possessing the values of being happy and grateful for what you have are character traits you fall back on when times are hard. If you don't value being happy even in the darkest times you will never be grateful for long. Happiness is what you have before, during and after you don't have money or had your home foreclosed on. It is not possible to be happy 100% of the time but we must try at least 98% to come out of our funk, shake it off, buck up and regroup.
Gratitude and the practice of being grateful allows you to focus on only positive issues that can help you get through a bad time. So many people are living from paycheck to paycheck, in danger of living in their cars or having their cars repossessed. Survival for many of us has replaced the hope of the possibility of being happy one day. Even as you are only surviving you have the abilities, tools and possibly the time to earn happiness. Some people are just getting by, struggling and surviving. Other people are making the necessary sacrifices that will lead to the achievement of their ultimate goal. They may be neighbors. One neighbor may be living within their means and the other neighbor may be stress out over money because they are financially over extended. Happiness is earned by making good decisions that contribute to what you identify as happiness.
The values of being happy and grateful for what you have are values to possess no matter how much money you have and no matter where you live. Our values have a lot to do with how we live. If we only value money to make us happy, we can never be happy for long. Being grateful for having money only leaves you nothing to be grateful if you somehow lose your money. The things you like have value and being happy means loving and respecting yourself. Doing the things you enjoy doing have value. If you don't like baseball, it's value to you is not as great as the person who loves baseball. Likewise the values of being happy and grateful for what you have.
Many of us, in the course of our lives, find ourselves in a position where we don't feel that we are happy. We are not happy because we weigh too much, we are not happy because we don't have children, we are not happy because we are struggling financially. Some of us have no control over matters of health and we still must find value in being happy and grateful for what you have. For some of us our bad habits keep us from realizing the fullest extent of our potential and our greatest capacity for happiness. The values of being happy and grateful for what we have are innate.
So it is up to you today to decide - are you grateful for what you have? If not, how can you change this?
Have a grateful day!
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