The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur

February 7Suddenly Grateful

There was a time when all these things would have passed me by, like the flitting figures of a theatre, sufficient for the amusement of an hour. But now, I have lost the power of looking merely on the surface. Everything seems to me to come from the Infinite, to be filled with the Infinite, to be tending toward the Infinite. Do I see crowds of people hastening to extinguish a fire? I see not merely uncouth garbs, and fantastic, flickering lights, of lurid hue, like a trampling troop of gnomes—but straightway my mind is filled with thoughts about mutual helpfulness, human sympathy, the common bond of fellowship, and the mysteriously deep foundations on which society rests; or rather, on which it now reels and totters.

Lydia Maria Child—Letters from New York (1843)

All of society indeed rests on a mysteriously deep foundation, but few debate the level at which our thoughts dictate how we choose to see the world.

Do we fill our minds with grateful images of the “common bond of fellowship” available in each moment? Or do we fret about the meeting tomorrow with that pain-in-the-neck client?

See everything today through the lens of gratitude and you might be surprised how even the mundane, the arduous, gets more delightful.

It may feel absurd to proclaim “I am so thankful! I get to go tell my client I'm not going to meet the deadline for the project!” But let's face it—you have a client, you have a project, you're probably going to sleep in a warm bed ...