Gratitude, and practicing how to be more grateful, have dramatically shifted my outlook on life. A while ago, I read an article about how a person named 3 things that they were grateful for every day for a month. After that month had passed, that person mentioned how much happier they were and how their life seemed better.
I think about how important perspective is a lot. The way we look at things and situations can really alter how we digest the stimulus in front of us. It is challenging to change how we look at things, and it truly takes a lot of work to try to push past what we are used to. If we are the type of person who likes to complain often, then we tend to look at mistakes as another thing to complain about. I am not saying that we are not allowed to complain or be upset when things go wrong, but the important part comes way after the mistake. It is important that we reflect, learn, and grow from that incident.
We have to choose to think positively. We have to actively try to find things that we are grateful for. I know that it is difficult to look for things that made us smile or brought us joy, but it makes life that much sweeter. I try to find the most obscure things when I ask myself what I am grateful for. I love looking for the things that are unique to that day and might have been looked over. For example, today I am grateful for traffic cones. I am grateful for these cones because I was able to block off parking spaces to allow for room for a food truck to come to our campus. Now so many students were able to enjoy food from the truck because the cones we able to safely block off room for that truck.
Now onto relating gratitude to love. I know that might have seemed like a stretch but I promise it connects. When I practice gratitude frequently, I look at the world around me with a new lens. I look at people around me differently, and most of all I look at myself differently. I learned to love the small things, the things that brought a smile to my face in an instant. I learned to love traits about people, how they act, the way they behave, and how their love for me is shown. I find myself falling more in love with my favorite people every day because I am so grateful for so many things about them. I learned to love parts of myself, both physically and not, and keep aiming to look at myself with more kindness.
Love is a large concept. Gratitude is also a large concept. Both are hard sometimes but ultimately are so worth it. I encourage you to practice gratitude and fall in love with life and everything it has to offer.