GRATITUDE MONTH: DAY 9: “When I drop my kids off at school in the morning, I often frame my farewells with an emphasis on their responsibility to look for the good. Instead of saying, “Have a great day!” I’ll say, “Choose to make it a great day!” Because I do believe it is a choice. We’ve all met people who seem to have it all and yet are completely miserable. And then we’ve met people who have next to nothing, have weathered many trials, and lost so much, yet carry themselves with such lightness. There’s a Croatian saying that goes “Svako je kocač svoje sreće.” It means “Everyone is a blacksmith of their joy.” We should make an effort to create happiness in our lives instead of blaming our unhappiness on everyone else and everything else.”― Kristina Kuzmic
This is a new quote for me. I have accumulated over 1000 quotes about gratitude, so am very happy when I see a new one. I got a few this month, which makes it more fun for me. I have written 6 books about gratitude, my research topic through the 6 years of working on my degrees in the early 2000s. I did more education along with that, but this degree was focused entirely on the healing properties of gratitude. And there is a ton of research evidencing its impact on the human brain. A ton! I was blessed, because one of the gurus of this research from the 1990s to today is at UCR and I was only a few miles away and could access that guru.
At that time, I had my own experience with gratitude, having spent my early recovery in a meeting with a man who said every day at 7AM, “Grateful people are happy people and those who ain’t, ain’t.” A very powerful message and I was blessed to have heard him very early in this thing. Because I had a crush on him, I wrote one every day before the meeting so I could share that with him. We are still friends today and he is blown away when I give him credit for what I have gone on to do with this particular topic. We both stayed clean and sober and are both very happy people. One of my favorite days was at a convention when we introduced our prospective spouses to each other. They were blown away that both our gratitude practices had impacted us so powerfully. They were recipients of our positive, happy attitudes.
I love this quote, because a mother has such great influence on her children, whether they embrace it or not in the moment, it is always there. This mother is teaching a powerful lesson that is, for me, the most important one of all…seeing life through a grateful lens can only be the biggest step to take on a spiritual journey. And I love the Croatian quote!
Dolphin Hug 