The most powerful thing in the Universe
 

Our own thinking.

Why Practicing Gratitude Matters, Even When Everything Is Awful | The Huffington Post

Absolutely no reason to not do this. Not forever, but just until it becomes a way of being-in-the-world. It just might change your life.

It does reduce stress and resentments that build up over things we often have little or no control over and in my case at least it reduces anxiety that can park itself front and centre of my consciousness if i do not take active steps like practising gratitide.

I'm grateful for the reminder EndGame

yep

Absolutely helps me 1000%

I have always known I am my thoughts. Thanks!

This comes from what is called "Positive Psychology." Not a big fan for a. couple of significant reasons, but parts of it have proved to be helpful for many people. Just as a damaged mind (not brain) inflicts further damage ionitself, as well as being a means of hurting other people, a more balanced and healthier perspective can turn things around for the better. We can teach ourselves to manage things like stress, anxiety, and fear and, in turn, improve our physical health and extend our longevity. It's a type of mental training that requires mental toughness. Something that we all have but that too few people dare attempt. As I think of it, we nurture mental toughness by training our minds to work for us rather than against us.

I'm not advocating that practicing gratitude the way it's described in the article is for everyone. What they describe are examples that we can tailor to suit our individuality. Gratitude was greatly emphasized in my program of recovery when I first got sober in 1983. It helped me to go twenty five years without a drink. It also helped me to turn my thinking and my behavior around, which then allowed me to succeed in areas of my life in which I had previously and repeatedly failed. And it was my stubborn unwillingness to practice gratitude and practice humility around my accomplishments that lead to my relapse, for several years before I finally picked up the drink.

Sadly, the most unhappy and most unfulfilled people tend to refuse to even consider practicing gratitude as therapeutic -- always finding something to complain about -- or even attempt practicing gratitude more than a couple of times before cataloging it as yet another failure to complain about. And they need it more than anyone. Fortunately, the truly miserable who make a genuine effort to change are also those people who benefit most from practicing gratitude.

It's become my mantra. It's always all about the doing and not about the outcome. The process itself, at any moment, is always the outcome. We are what we do. It's a terrible thing that so many of us never learn this simple lesson.

Thanks Endgame.

When I learned that I could change my world by changing my thoughts, my life became dramatically better. I actually discovered this years ago. After quitting drinking, it is the second most important thing that has happened in my life.

I started practicing gratitude at around 3 months sober, when I wasn't feeling too wonderful. It made a huge difference in my life and my attitude. :)

When the world seems too much to bear, it helps to quiet my mind by focusing on the positive in my life.

Gratitude makes a big difference. :)

Gratitude is a very powerful tool.
I find the more I practice it, the more it arises naturally. There is always something to be grateful for.

Although I'm biased in favor of what we do rather than what we think, I also believe that these two phenomena are inseparable. And I get what you mean.

I also believe that we know a lot more about ourselves and about life than we dare let on or acknowledge. We take on attributes that are the products of our fears and desires and confuse them with who we are. The self is not a thing, but a task; the things we do. To paraphrase a prolific existential thinker and writer, and someone who lived live fully, we spend a great deal of time and energy denying who and what we are, only to be done in, in the end, by our own denial. For people who spend most of their lives, if not its entirety, pretending to be what we are not is irredeemable and can only end in despair.

One might argue that there is no "bright side" to being human, only the consequences of what we do. From another perspective, that may well be the bright side.