Mercedes SUV1
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
Brett and Kate McKay<br />
What prevents us from showing our gratitude more freely?<br />
Gratitude is inextricably tied up with the virtue of humility. Gratitude<br />
shows that we’re paying attention to the acts of service people perform for<br />
us and that we truly understand how those acts make our life better, easier,<br />
and happier. The ungrateful man is callous; he’s come to think that all the<br />
good things that happen to him and all the service rendered him are an<br />
automatic response to his impeachable awesomeness. He deserves all that<br />
stuff and more. Thus, he never takes notice of the good things that happen<br />
to him. And he’s never really happy with what he has. He deserves only the<br />
best in life, and concentrates solely on the ways in which this ideal hasn’t<br />
been met.<br />
The grateful man is a humble man. He has no illusions of his grandeur.<br />
He knows that bad things happen to good people. He knows how easily a<br />
rally can turn into a slump. He knows how much worse off many others are<br />
than he is. He understands the sacrifices others make on his behalf. And he<br />
deeply, deeply appreciates them.<br />
Personal Gratitude<br />
Gratitude is not simply something that we externally share with others.<br />
It is an attitude that we live with every day. Some of the unhappiest men<br />
I’ve met in my life have also been the most ungrateful. They could only see<br />
the things that were wrong with their life, choosing to concentrate on the<br />
things they wished they had and wished had happened but didn’t. Their<br />
whining corrupted their soul. On the flip side, some of the happiest men<br />
I’ve know are the ones that truly embraced the virtue of gratitude. Some of<br />
them were dirt poor, but they were still so grateful for what little they did<br />
have. They focused not on the things they lacked, but on all the things they<br />
had going for them.<br />
Some people think if they had more stuff or better luck, then they would<br />
magically have more gratitude. But the number of your material possessions<br />
or relationships will have no effect on your attitude. Once you got<br />
33