A New Kind of Gratitude

"The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings."

                       ~Unknown

I always thought of myself being a pretty grateful person until this year. I was going through life like I normally did but I felt different. I began to ponder about why I felt different and what I could do to change that.
 
People who know me know I am not a consistent journal writer, (why this blog will hopefully get me into a better habit). So I was thinking of ways how I could motivate and remind myself to write in my journal. Normally what would happen is it would be several months since I last wrote in my journal so it would take me a very long time to write everything I wanted to write. My solution was what I realized was the reason I wasn't very happy like a usually was. I decided to write every night 5 things I was grateful for that day. It wasn't just like my bed, food, etc. I really tried to think of things I was truly grateful for. It started out with things that I had done for myself, after a couple days it was small things that people had done for me. I had things like someone smiled at me today, or I saw someone that was really close to me.
 
I began to realize that I had forgotten how much people actually did for me. I can live my life doing as much as I can, but I came to a knowledge that I would not have done as much as I have done without all the people in my life to help me. I realized gratitude isn't just about saying "thank you", when people give you a gift or give you a ride home. Gratitude is knowing how much people do for you and being grateful for it and trying to give back in return.