I’m thankful to live in American where accessibility laws allow me to get places easier and more comfortably. I remind myself that it’s 2012 when mobility equipment and computer technology allow me so many options.
And when I have trouble being grateful, I read these quotes: (Where there is no credit for the quote, I simply don’t know who said it – if you do, please comment.)
“Thankfulness becomes your barrier between you and anger, bitterness, envy, strife. It doesn’t let them in the door.” – A Thankful Heart is a happy Heart
“The best way to forget your own problem is to help someone solve his.”
“The happiest people don’t necessarily have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything.” -Unknown
“We do not understand joy, until we face sorrow; Faith….until it is tested; Peace…until faced with conflict; Love…until it is lost; Hope…until confronted with doubts.”
“Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, and its power of endurance. The cheerful man will do more in the same time will do it better, will persevere in it longer, than the sad or sullen.” Thomas Carlyle
“You can be sad you don’t have shoes or be grateful that you have feet.”
“You can complain because rose bushes have thorns or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
“The difficulties of life are intended to make us better not bitter.”
“If you are bothered by every rub, how will you ever be polished?” – Rumi
“Being happy doesn’t mean everything is perfect. It means you’ve decided to see beyond the imperfections.”
Happiness is not having what you want. It’s wanting what you have. -Unknown
“Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.” – Dale Carnegie
Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, but the realization of how much you already have.
“Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.” — Art Linkletter
Don’t tell God how big your troubles are, tell your troubles how big your God is.
Even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one.
Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which to die.
If you are all wrapped up in yourself, you are overdressed.
Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. – Charles Swindoll
Needs are the fuel for growth. Thank you Lord for my neediness.
Never feel self-pity, the most destructive emotion there is. How awful too be caught up in the terrible squirrel cage of self. -Millicent Fenwick
Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is. – Ernest Hemingway
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” — Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
It’s all right to sit on your pity pot every now and again. Just be sure to flush when you are done.
I find that it is not the circumstances in which we are placed, but the spirit in which we meet them that constitutes our comfort.
The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one has to do. -James M. Barrie
Today is the day I have been looking for. All my life has been spent in preparation for it. Yesterday and tomorrow are faraway nothings—the one a faint memory, the other a vague promise. But this is my day. It offers all that God has to give, and I’m a laggard or a coward if I fail to make the most of it. -Author Unknown
Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is. – Ernest Hemingway
“Joyfulness is a sense of well-being without necessarily being well. Joy is a medicine. It is a serenity that sings songs in the night.” Jill Briscoe
“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.” Corrie Ten Boom
“There is no pit so deep, that God’s love is not deeper still.” Corrie Ten Boom
“Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.” George S. Patton
And if I still have trouble being grateful, I take a nap.
Climbing Downhill 