“Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.” - Brian Tracy, Canadian-American Public Speaker and Author.
Thanksgiving, the holiday where we come together with family and friends to stuff ourselves with turkey, stuffing, gravy, and various casseroles (this year my mom made green bean and cornbread casseroles, both of which were out of this world, I'm not kidding), then finish off with some pumpkin pie and whipped cream.
For those of you psychopaths who chose pecan pie instead, stop reading the article; you guys are an abomination to American society.
Haha I'm just kidding. Pecan pie is good, although pumpkin is better.
Anyway, while we are enjoying our pie of preference, usually we'll watch a family movie, crack jokes, with loved ones, and just spend quality time together, filling the abode with gratitude and thankfulness.
Whether or not we actually mention the words "grateful, gratitude, thankful" or "thankfulness" we still emit gratitude and thankfulness on that day.
Now why is that you may ask?
I'll answer it for you, and it's a quite simple answer: your actions are emitting gratitude, and 'actions speak louder than words'
Yeah, yeah, I get it. A lot of stuff I mention in my articles are cliche, but I swear to you, what's cliche is what works (or what's true in this case).
We all hear those mini lectures about gratitude and thankfulness on thanksgiving, which can have its impact, don't get me wrong.
But when we come together with people, we are grateful to have a blessed and joyful time with them, we emit a more powerful form of gratitude and thankfulness than we realize.
A big part of self-cultivation, often times known as alchemy, or self-alchemy, requires oneself to act based on gratitude and thankfulness. There's no way you can possibly 'level up' in life without giving thanks to what you've been blessed with.
No matter how much thanks we give, it'll never suffice for all the blessings we have. From every day we wake up to a soft bed with a warm blanket, a nice shower, a comfortable form of transportation, to our scientifically pitch-perfect human bodies, and each second of every breathe we take, the things we have been given are too much to equal any form of gratitude.
But that doesn't mean we give up on giving thanks. That doesn't mean we stop being grateful. Quite the contrary, actually. We should continue to be grateful, because often times it's the grateful people who continue to get more things to be grateful for.
For those of who who've read my articles before, this may remind you of the "Law of Attraction". Ring a bell? Here's one of my articles on this interesting phenomenon.
In essence, the more we give thanks, the more blessings we end up getting to be thankful for. Like attracts like, as the Law of Attraction states.
Thus, every day of our lives should be a form of thanksgiving; a day of giving thanks. It doesn't have to be a festive day of gluttony per se, but at least give some form of thanks every day. Maintain that aura or vibe of gratitude, for gratitude is the essence of a positive life.
Abraham Lincoln, the 15th president of the United States of America, the savior of the Union and freer of slaves, was the one who made Thanksgiving Day a national holiday. He proclaimed on October 31st, 1863 to "...observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father (God) who dwelleth in the Heavens."
Let's use the last Thursday of November as a stepping stone of gratitude.
So, live a positive life, and build on that momentum of positivity that you've emitted from thanksgiving.
It's not difficult. Just show yourself how happy you are with everything you've been given. A huge example could be being grateful for a strong immune system, as we are unfortunately still in a pandemic.
Give much thanks through your daily actions to make every day of your life, a day of thanksgiving.
Pursue Alchemy