Six Habits of Highly Grateful People

Gratefulness. A trait that everyone should pay more attention to, that of which Jeremy Adam Smith highlights in "Six Habits of Highly Grateful People". Smith elaborated all the components that make up a grateful person. One who often thinks about death and loss, takes the time to smell the roses, takes the good things as gifts, not birthrights, are grateful to people, not just things, mentions the pancakes, thanks outside the box ("Six Habits..."). All of these are key factors in becoming a truly thankful person. Responding to all that Smith had to say about gratefulness, I would like to explore my own thoughts on the subject.
I agree that gratefulness is beneficial in one's life. I feel as though if a person is more grateful on a daily basis, they are overall more happy. This could possibly be fake happiness in the moment, but that will eventually transfer into a pure emotion. Take soccer practice, for example, since I am so familiar with that topic. While at soccer practice in the scorching hot weather, with our coach down our throat, we have to stay grateful to stay sane. There is one girl on our team that I especially envy because of her ability to stay positive. We normally practice for two hours everyday, and we can keep track of the passing time because of the loud bell we have on campus. Stating practice at four in the afternoon, we know we will hear the bell once at five and another time at six, then our practice is about to come to an end. Well, every time the clock would strike five and we heard those church bells rings five times in a row, most of us would dread the last hour of practice, except the one girl I mentioned before. She would always say after the bell rang, "one hour down!" This is way more grateful that what most of the other girls would say, "ugh, one more hour to go!" I feel like she was overall happier in that last hour because of her positive outlook on the situation.
Since it is the week of Thanksgiving, I think gratefulness is a wonderful topic to bring to light. We need to learn as a society how to be more grateful on a daily basis. We can't, for instance, just after reading this article change our mentality just for the day. Or just be grateful on Thanksgiving, because that's what we're told to do. No. Gratefulness needs to become a habit everyday, eventually turning into a lifestyle.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Works Cited

Smith, Jeremy. "Six Habits of Highly Grateful People." Greater Good The Science of a Meaningful Life. Ed. Jason Marsh. N.p., 20 Nov. 2013. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. <http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/six_habits_of_highly_grateful_people>.