Choosing Gratitude As a Way of Living & Feeling

This book helped me to rethink the importance of a gratitude mindset.

Each November I try to do things that will help me focus on and increase gratitude in my life. This year I read James Autry’s  Choosing Gratitude: Learning to Love the Life You Have. It was a quick read and my highlights are below.

Autry says gratitude is much more than saying, “Thank you.” It is a way of living and even a way of feeling. He encourages us to continually take gratitude inventories in the different parts of our life: Family and Friends, Community, Work, Play.

After reflecting on these, we are invited to share the lists with others.  Autry would like this writing, reflection and sharing to lead to others doing the same. He’d like to start a gratitude movement.

I like the sound of that, too: a worldwide gratitude movement.

In any situation, Autry says, we can focus on the bad or the good. We can complain or give thanks for how things worked out in spite of the bad. We can look for the blessings that helped us cope and for the people who intervened.

I am a glass half-full type of person. I surround my thoughts with quotes that support that type of positive mentality. So I really liked the gratitude quotes Autry scattered throughout his book. Here are my faves . . .

• “No duty is more urgent than of returning thanks,” Saint Ambrose.
• “We owe thankfulness to God, not sour faces,” Rumi.
• “Thanksgiving is good but thanks-living is better,” Matthew Henry.
• “The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings,” Eric Hoffer.

Your Turn . . . Are you more of a glass half full or half empty?  . . . What do you do to increase your awareness of the blessings that surround you? . . . Do you have a fave quote from the above?

Related Posts . . . 

• 3 Benefits of Month-Long Gratitude-Fest
• Choosing Gratitude by Nancy Leigh DeMoss – a book review
• Choosing Gratitude And Why It Matters
• Personal Gratitude Prevents Burnout