Saturday, July 23, 2011

A Gratitude Attitude



My family and I were without water service for a bit. There was a hillside slip not far from our home and the repair took almost three days. As easy at it would be for me to sit and whine about all these dishes I have to catch up on, I'm not gonna do it. I'd much rather crank some tunes and wash some dishes than moan and groan and complain over something that - in my book - is just not worth complaining about.

I'm just gonna be grateful that we had enough food to eat to get these things all scuzzied up.

I mean, the guys and gals at the water department just worked day and night for almost three days to restore our service, and we once again have access to clean water (according to a report from Unicef and the World Health Organization, some 884 million people lack access to safe water supplies*)... so if anything, I just came out of this situation with a greater appreciation for my reality.

As annoying as it may be to the people who don't get it, living with an attitude of gratitude is something I find a lot of joy in! I guess there's been some research done to prove that being grateful makes people feel happy. Check this out (it's only 37 seconds long):





Don't get me wrong... I complain sometimes. I think (unless you live in Perfect World - please tell me that's a real place and take me there!) refusing to vent occasionally is akin to living in total denial. I don't do denial. I just do my best to choose what's worth the grumbling. Today I choose to suck it up and sing and dance my way through this chore. How bad can it really be when I've got yellow Joy dishwashing liquid and K-LOVE Radio? (Remember the "Yellow Joy - It's Not Just for Dishes Anymore" blog post? I really did end up making the switch to Joy dishwashing liquid. Ha!)

Do you try to have an attitude of gratitude? Have you resisted the urge to complain about something lately? Were you glad you did? How do you decide what's really worth a grumble?

Until next time, may you be blessed - and inspired to pass it on!

*Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation, Unicef, WHO (2008)

5 comments:

Tracie Nall said...

I'm glad that you got your water turned back on finally!

Living with that attitude of gratitude really does make life easier.

I'm all about the Joy dish-washing soap at my house! And I need to go use it on my own sink of dishes today.

Shen said...

Thank you - this was just what I needed to read tonight. Really. I was starting to move to this place, myself - starting... trying... to get to the place of knowing the things going on around me can't touch who I really am.

This would be great for the upcoming steppers' wisdom blog carnival. Maybe you could submit it?

Megan said...

Thank you both for coming by.

Tracie, I hope you got those dishes done! I only got about half of mine finished yesterday and will be handling the rest when I get home from church today. Half is better than none though, right??? Right??? lol


Shen, I'm so glad you came by! It's a difficult place to shift to for some of us. I was about 10 years into this journey before I even embraced this whole concept. But I can truly say it has changed my attitude and 99.9% of the time I can find SOMETHING to be happy about. As I said, I have my days... but I'm so much happier when I look at what I *do* have as opposed to what I'm lacking. (I'll check out that blog carnival ASAP.)

Bless you both! Thanks again!

LadyJtalks said...

I have so much to be grateful for at the moment, yet I know how easy it is to complain about the one thing I have not. Great post, and amazing how we miss simple things.

Megan said...

Thanks! It is very easy to complain... and very easy to miss the simple things. Thanks for stopping by! =)

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