You’re scrolling through Facebook. Images and words whip by. Some captivate you immediately: a bold statement on a bright red background. A playful puppy. An incredible sunset saturated with warm colors. A bead of water on a leaf.
However, we may later find ourselves staring at our friend’s brand-new BMW or a pair of bare feet kicking back on some sunny Hawaiian beach. We may read a joyful post about a wonderful new job promotion. Our egos can go into overdrive, pushing us to compare ourselves to those of our friends and family who we feel have more prosperity than us. We may criticize and admonish ourselves for what we perceive we lack – especially if we are facing health, financial, personal and/or professional challenges.
This self-imposed prison can spin us downward into a pit of self-hatred, despondency, and envy.
Cultivating an attitude of gratitude can lift us into a higher perspective. It can allow us to feel positive for others’ successes instead of allowing others’ successes to drive us downward into negativity.
And by activating gratitude we can attract prosperity in our lives.
But what is prosperity? Many equate prosperity with money and expensive things. Prosperity is so much more. It manifests in numerous ways far beyond simple material things.
Like what, then?
When a good friend calls us just when we need to hear from them, we are prosperous because we have caring folk in our lives. If we enjoy a quiet moment in which we’re doing what we love, whether it’s reading a book or taking a walk or playing Overwatch, we’ve got prosperity in our lives. We are prosperous when we raise our personal and spiritual awareness. We are prosperous when we exercise and improve our cardiovascular systems. We are prosperous when we have good friends and family on whom we can depend.
By redefining prosperity, we can begin to realize how much of it we actually do have in our lives.
And that’s where gratitude comes in.
We can sometimes believe that if we’re being grateful, we’ll suddenly get that windfall of money or that nice big pay raise or that top-of-the-line entertainment center. In fact, we may tell ourselves that by being grateful we deserve to acquire prosperity -- as though the only purpose of gratitude is to force the universe to give us what we feel we lack.
It may be difficult to break out of this way of thinking. After all, we live in a world of cause and effect. If we work X hours, we will be paid X dollars. We have to do something in order to gain something. But does that mean we should automatically get a promotion or a better relationship or that new car immediately if we practice gratitude?
Gratitude is purely the act of feeling thankful for what we do have in life. That is all it is. And by practicing honest gratitude we begin to open ourselves up to the potential of new prosperity. Once we open ourselves up to new prosperity, new prosperity can come to us – in unexpected and surprising ways. We just have to be patient.
Take a moment, now, to feel gratitude for what you do have in life. Don’t worry if the list feels too short. Try not to judge your “level of prosperity.” Let that go. This moment is for you and you alone. Then, over the next seven days, try practicing gratitude by listing three things each day for which you are grateful. They can be small things or big things. You may be grateful for a turn in the weather, accomplishing a particular goal, or perhaps for the supportive friend who talked with you late into the night.
By practicing gratitude, we open ourselves up to learning how to appreciate what we have – and not worry about what we don’t have. We open ourselves up to focusing on the good in our lives – without envy for the good in others’ lives.
Over time, we learn to activate the powerful and deep connection between gratitude and prosperity in our lives by practicing gratitude each day.