Appreciation Is a Wonderful Thing| Daily Meditation-January 9, 2022

Today’s Quotation:

Make it a habit to tell people thank you.  To express your appreciation, sincerely and without the expectation of anything in return.  Truly appreciate those around you, and you’ll soon find many others around you.  Truly appreciate life, and you’ll find that you have more of it.

Ralph Marston

Today’s Meditation:

Wouldn’t it be great if everyone would appreciate the important things in life?  Wouldn’t life be much easier if each person felt appreciation and expressed it fully to others?  How many hurt feelings would be avoided, and how many people would feel a much stronger sense of belonging and closeness to others?  How much fear would be eliminated if people were just able to express their appreciation completely and sincerely?

When I tell someone “thank you,” it’s a validation of something that they’ve done, no matter how small a validation it may be.  I’m acknowledging the fact that they’ve done something for me and that I appreciate it.  When I give thanks in this way, I’m spreading a positive spirit, an uplifting way of life, and a grateful attitude.  And when others experience my thank you’s, maybe–just maybe–they’ll see the positive impact that having an appreciative attitude has on my life and then try to cultivate a sense of appreciation in their own lives.

We reap what we sow–there’s almost no argument against this concept.  If I approach life from a perspective of appreciation and gratitude, I will have more in life to appreciate and for which to be grateful.  But I must be sincere in my appreciation which sometimes means that I’ll have to make an effort to see and understand the aspects of some thing or some person for which I should be appreciative.  It’s not always easy, but it often does depend more upon the way I see things than it does upon what the things or people or situations are themselves.

If I want to live life fully, then I must see life as fully as I am able and continue to work towards seeing it even more fully.  I must be appreciative of all that life gives to me, for I truly don’t know what things are best for me, and which things may not be as good, no matter how they seem to me when I look at them from my limited perspective.  I wouldn’t hold a beautiful gift given in sincerity in disdain, and all of life that is given to me is a beautiful gift that I sometimes must work to see and appreciate.

Questions to ponder:

1. When is it easy for us to be appreciative, and when is it difficult?  Why?

2. How can we develop our sense of appreciation?

3. How can spreading appreciation bring more people around us?  Why might it have that effect?

For further thought:

Appreciation is a wonderful thing:  It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.

Voltaire

Credit: Living Life Fully