Good morning, God! Thank you for this new day, and this new week. I do appreciate the fact that I get at least another day on this planet, and that this coming week is going to be a very short one at work, and a very easy one at that.
It's Thanksgiving week here in the States, and this is what I see as a wonderful holiday. How can it be a bad one when there are so many people focused so strongly on gratitude and on being with people we love? It's a more difficult holiday still because so many people are still hurting for money, but that of course doesn't take away from the beauty of what the holiday is.
That said, I do have to ask you about gratitude. What we hear from others is that if we have enough gratitude for the things that we have in life, then we will always have enough things, and even more. If we're thankful enough for our salary, they say, then our salary will go up. If we're thankful for our friends, then we'll have even more friends. But I'm one of the most thankful people that I know--my mind is constantly focused on gratitude for the things and opportunities that I have, and on the people who are a part of my life. Yet over the years, I constantly find that I have less and less of the things for which I'm thankful. After many years of being thankful for work, I was laid off through no fault of my own. Even though I'm thankful for our home and the things we have, we find ourselves constantly in financial stress, constantly struggling to make ends meet, also through no fault of our own (but that's another story!).
I guess my question is this: Are these people right? Am I fooling myself to think that I'm grateful when in reality I'm not? Is my gratitude somehow faulty, or self-serving? Are our financial difficulties a result of a lack of gratitude for the finances we have? Does the Law of Attraction not work for us because we're focused on the wrong things? I've spent years trying to work myself out of the concept of lack, and away from thoughts of lack, but when things don't change no matter how much I change, does that not say that there's something wrong? There are many people out there telling me that the things that happen to me are all a result of my thinking--so does that mean that in my thinking there isn't enough gratitude?
An answer:
To answer your last question first: absolutely not. That should do it. Once you hear the answer to that question, you should feel the doubts you're feeling slip away. But I know that more of an explanation will be helpful to you.
The people out there who are telling you these things are people who are trying to make money by telling other people things that have worked for them in their lives. What they are doing is generalizing the cause-and-effect relationships that they've seen, without being completely sure that they're seeing them correctly. In other words, they think positively for a few months, they see positive results, and they infer that the first caused the second.
But your life is not a result of just your thoughts. You could have thought the most positive thoughts in the world several years ago, and you still would have been laid off. Your experience there was a result of situations entirely out of your sphere of control, and they were bound to happen. The school district was poorly run, and it ran out of money. That's all there was to it. When you walk into the classroom and you have all the positive thoughts you can possibly have, and two of your students are having awful days, the attitude that they bring to class is beyond your control. You can try to help them to change their attitudes, but if something serious is going on at their homes, then you're probably going to have limited success. Their worlds extend beyond the classroom.
Gratitude is extremely important in life, but it doesn't guarantee anything except positive results in your own attitude. Thankfulness does bring great things, but that doesn't stop other things from happening. Deaths happen, anger happens, resentment happens--and when those things happen to others who allow their own negative feelings to affect your life, then all you can do is control your own reaction. And having an attitude that is full of thankfulness for the blessings in your life definitely can help you to cope with the negative things when they happen, but that attitude isn't necessarily going to be a causal agent for a life without problems or negative issues.
Your idea of "not thankful enough" is a result of seeing and hearing what other people say and then applying their words to your life without really stopping to make sure that what they say is accurate. I know that you don't do this month, and it heartens me to see that you don't slam yourself for your supposed lack of gratitude. In fact, you have a healthy perspective on how much gratitude you do have. Keep it. It will be a good and faithful friend through hard times and easy. But don't think that anything negative that happens in your life has been brought forth by you. Things often come from other sources, and they do affect you. In those cases, the most important thing you can do is to make your way through those times in as positive a way as you can. Thankfulness will help you to do so.
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