BEING THANKFUL

BEING THANKFUL

THERE is a popular story about a wealthy man who had a big house, a big land and at the back of the land a big river. He was visited by a friend one day, this friend told him a story about diamonds, how beautiful they are, how precious and valuable. At the end of the story the wealthy man was discontent with what he had, he was not only discontent he was a poor man. All night long he did not sleep, he only thought about diamonds. To cut the long story short, this man sold all he had and went in search of diamonds, could not find any, exhausted his resources and finally committed suicide. While the person who bought his land went to the back of the land near the river and found uncut diamond and became rich accumulating wealth.

I read the story from the book Acres of Diamond by Russell .H. Conwell. The moral of the story is that the man took his eye from all he had and focused on what he did not have; thereby losing what he had, the man was not thankful for what he had.

Being thankful for what we have is very important because it helps us to appreciate more good things when they come.

People who struggle financially are expert complainers and ingrates about their life, they are ungrateful for the blessings they have and only complain about how miserable they think their life is. This adds more misery and negativity into their life.

While the rich and wealthy always have an intense feeling of gratitude for all they have and the life they live. This attracts more good things to them, which makes them to always have an abundance of everything.

To use this simple principle of wealth one must simply shift from complaining about the bad part of life to appreciating only the glorious side of life, the side that brings joy and happiness.

The other day I was watching the news and a guy was being interviewed, he was so busy gallantly complaining about how bad the government is, how they have being abandoned, how life is hard, how this and that, this and that is bad so on and so forth.  I could just see how the negativity was pouring from him. 

Personally I will avoid such people so that I don’t get infected by his negativity. But here was a guy who was healthy,(I guess nobody told him that there where people in hospital needing up to $20,000 just to be in good health this people will pay him $20,000 just in exchange for his health) he had two hands,( I guess his two hands is worth a small fortune to people without hands) he has his life and so many other valuable things that he doesn’t know about. But all he can see is that the government is bad and it has abandoned him in a bad condition. I felt like reaching into the Television to console him and after that to give him a dirty slap and shake him, to awaken him to all the good he has in his life.

The other day i saw a very sad scene, i saw a guy who had no legs, he had arms but his arms were too weak and limp, he could not even sit up, the only way he could move was rolling on the ground, i felt so bad for the guy and it made me realize even more that i had and every individual had  to be thankful for the life we have.

This what Andrew Carnegie in the book University of success by Og Mandino, says

      “About 90 percent of the things in our lives are right and about 10 percent are wrong. If we want to be happy, all we need to do is to concentrate on the 90 percent that are right and ignore the 10 percent that are wrong. If we want to be bitter and have stomach ulcers, all we have to do is to concentrate on the 10 percent that are wrong and ignore the 90 percent that are glorious”

True! We have so much to be thankful for, indeed much of our lives are good and only a small portion is not so perfect. Let us learn to be thankful for all that we have.