The Gift of Gratitude

When I was a kid, it was all about what I would be
getting for Christmas. I used to sit with the JC Penny catalog on my
lap, flipping through the pages at all the things that I really wanted
for the holidays. I would fold the page, circling the item and move on. I
wanted to ensure that my Mom had a good idea of what was on my wish list.
Looking back…I had no boundaries. I wanted it all. Anything that I found the
least bit interesting would have a dog eared page. On Christmas morning I would
awaken in the pre-dawn hours, sneak out to see if anything had been placed under
the tree with my name on it and then sneak back to bed. Invariably, I would get
not one item from the battered catalog. Not one.

Now don’t get me
wrong, after all the gifts were opened, I would sit amidst my stack of stuff
completely satisfied without a backward glance at all of those unreceived marked
toys. And my Mom was a great gift giver. She was thorough in making certain
all of her four kids received the same number and value of gifts. Looking back,
it was seeing her joy in giving that now means the most. She would sit on
Christmas morning with a satisfied glimmer in her eyes to see the delight in
ours.

This leads me to my thought for the week. Showing and sharing
gratitude. This past week, my end of class reading was around the theme of
recognizing that we are never too busy to be grateful. Just think about the
last time someone publicly acknowledged a specific thing that you did. Or when
you received that handwritten thank you note in the mail, or perhaps someone
sent you a link to something that was brought up in a recent conversation. How
did that make you feel?

With the infusion of technology in all aspects of
our lives, we have lost the art of connecting directly with people. We are
bombarded with numerous emails, tweets and posts every day that we have lost the
fundamental practice of simply responding. It’s maddening to send an email,
text or leave a voicemail to never hear back from the person. Yet, if we did we
would realize that this not only feels that we’ve been heard, but the residual
impact is powerful.

The time it takes to respond, to be grateful, to
acknowledge or say thanks has a far greater impact than we might think (or
remember). And nobody is THAT busy that doing so is impossible. It only takes
a short amount of time to tap into gratitude and let others know about
it.