Blogging Your Blessings

As the old Jimmy Durante song goes, “make someone happy.”  A thoughtful, hand-written letter will do that EVERY TIME! It's so important to make someone happy.  Make just one someone happy… Fame, if you win it, Comes and goes in a minutes. Where's the real stuff in life, to cling to? Love is the answer! Make someone happy, Make just one someone happy. And you will be happy too.

1. Be grateful and recognize the things others have done to help you. 2. When you say, “Thank you,” to someone, it signals what you appreciate and why you appreciate it. 3. Post a “Thank you to all” on your Facebook page or your blog, or send individual e-mails to friends, family, and colleagues. 4. Send a handwritten thank-you note. These are noteworthy because so few of us take time to write and mail them. 5. Think thoughts of gratitude—two or three good things that happened today—and notice calm settle through your head, at least for a moment. It activates a part of the brain that floods the body with endorphins, or feel-good hormones. 6. Remember the ways your life has been made easier or better because of others’ efforts. Be aware of and acknowledge the good things, large and small, going on around you. 7. Keep a gratitude journal or set aside time each day or evening to list the people or things you’re grateful for today. The list may start out short, but it will g...

Dear Reader, Gratitude is one of the loveliest paths to personal growth. It can be subtle; after contemplating what it is to approach your life-thankfulness, you may find that you have the “half-full mindset.” Maybe instead of worrying Sunday nights about work and meetings and goals, you relax and remember to be grateful to have work you really enjoy. Next thing you know, your co-workers picked up on the fact that you were less stressed out and more fun to be around, and your desk becomes on oasis of positivity in the office and people leave your workspace with a spring in their step. Your family responded in kind, and your home is a calmer, happier place filled with calmer, happier people. Your friends who used to call you and complain about life now call and tell you all the good things happening. That one took a while but your aura of gratefulness eventually took hold and bloomed. You, my friend, have an attitude of gratitude and are making the world a better place. Wel...

Are you tired of walking around with a hole in your heart? Do you need more inspiration? Studies show—and experts counsel—that gratitude is a key component of our own happiness. People who are grateful about events and experiences from the past, who celebrate the triumphs instead of focusing on the losses or disappointments, tend to be more satisfied in the present. In her popular book The Secret , Rhonda Byrne writes, “With all that I have read and all that I have experienced in my own life using The Secret, the power of gratitude stands above everything else. If you do only one thing with the knowledge of this book, use gratitude until it becomes your way of life.”