Daily Gratitude: How do you summon this courage? Starting simple. Get a piece of paper or your phone/computer and record just one thing you are grateful for. One tiny thing. That’s all. It will help your spirits even if just a tiny bit. Put down another small thing and so on. If you can hold on and do this for 10 things, no matter how small, your mood will be better. Once you feel better, you can continue listing the things you’re grateful for. Trying to think of them will take your focus off the hard times. Once the focus is elsewhere, that will also help your mood. Keeping your mind off the bad things is key to altering your outlook. And making you happier, even if just for a bit.

Daily Gratitude: Wow, if we could all adopt this attitude for the next year, what a change we’d see in ourselves, others and even the world. I know that we are up against times where people will have totally opposite opinions which could lead to blows. What if we tried to just accept whatever happens without complaints and criticisms. What good do they do anyway? If you disagree with the way something is being done, i’m sure you know that your complaints and criticims won’t change squat. They just make for more dissension and hatred – and it makes you upset, angry, furious, sad, whatever. I am not saying that we should condone what we don’t agree with but we don’t have to continue to feed negativity into the universe’s atmosphere with things that won’t make a difference. Take some of that energy and put it into a charity or cause where you can make a change and help people (or animals). This is why i don’t bother with the news anymore. If there’s something major, it pops up as a “breaking news” alert (which is usually bogus – i don’t know how the media defines “breaking news” but that’s another matter). Otherwise, things that are happening will most likely be issues i can’t do anything about. I want to enjoy what’s left of my life and being upset by stuff happening thousands of miles away. Again, this is not a defeatist attitude, because if you can take some constructive action, then you should. Otherwise, spread love and joy.

Daily Gratitude: As I’ve grown older I’ve begun to have a more open mind. I lament that i wasn’t able to cultivate such a state long ago but rather than looking to the past, I am just enjoying this change. Don’t get me wrong, there are still plenty of doors and locked windows in this big old house that my brain inhabits. However, being able to calm my nervous system and entertain different points of view is a lot of fun and very rewarding. As soon as I find myself making a judgment about something i catch myself and ask a question of two. Perhaps its someone who has sat at the red light for “too long” after it turns greeen and gets to go while I’m stuck waiting for the next green light. As I start to seethe i take a deep breath and say to myself “ok, have you done that before?” of course the answer is yes 99% of the time. If i somehow slip by the prosecution for that offense, i then ask myself “do you know what’s going on in their life that may be causing them not to pay much attention? Can you think of any time that you’ve had so much happening that your concentration was affected?” Again the answer is most likley “no i don’t know what’s going on in their life and yes, i can remember such times.” Going through this process allows me to have compassion for people and defuse my self-righteous high horse. Then I realize how nice it would be if i progressed enough that i didn’t even have to go through the process; that i could just accept things that happen.