What makes certain people so happy and alive?

Believe me. They don’t have anything more than you. They don’t consume a magic pill to make them feel happy every day.

Then how are they feeling so happy all the time?

Because they know how to appreciate and be thankful for what they are already have in life, instead of focusing their energy on things that they don’t have.

Happiness is the ability to feel thankful for the things we have even at our toughest times.

Gratitude is a trait to look at the positivity of the situation instead of worrying about the unknown. Those who see and relish the simplest pleasure of lives are happier people compared to those who wait to find happiness in life’s grandeur moments.

Couple of years back, I was in my toughest phase of life. I had plenty of personal relationship problems and that literally pushed me to depression. I was constantly worrying about my life and how my wishes were turned down to ashes.  And the usual question about life, ‘why it happens only to me’, kept bombarding inside my head.

When I think about it now, I feel how wrong I was.  There were many good things that were happening around me that time. It was plainly my poor attitude for missing them all out, and just focusing on the one thing that troubled me.

I could have easily felt thankful for my beautiful daughter, a well-paying job, a debt-free home, lovely parents.. Etc. Instead I chose my personal problem above everything else and wasted my energy on stress and anxiety for nearly a year.

How I Started to Practice Gratitude?

Coming out of my personal problems was a life changing incident. It took a great deal of time from me to get over it. But eventually I came out of it and learned to let go.

To come out of those whirl of negative world I started to write down my thoughts on a journal. It was a suggestion I read on a book. So I tried it.

I did that mainly to clear my mind and to think properly.  I started to write down about the things that kept me going in that troubled time. That’s how I started to practice gratitude and be thankful for everything around me.

Initially, it was very difficult to find out positive things on my life. I felt the whole world was conspiring against me and there is not even one incident that is making me happy.  But when I put down my emotions and think logically, I felt that I could feel happy for few things even though I was pretty much upset on life.

I wrote down even the simplest pleasure of my life in my journal. Suddenly sipping a tasty coffee, early morning walk, talking to my close friend, shopping for myself made me feel so thankful about life.

There are plenty of people who are not even gifted to live a life like this. So my mind slowly came out of the world full of worry to a world that is filled with life’s little pleasures.

Then it became a habit. When you do something consistently for a period of time, it gets ingrained into your mind.

Even though I  wrote down on journal only to overcome my stress and anxiety, I never knew this one habit would build the gratitude trait on me. I don’t write down now on what I feel grateful every day. My mind unconsciously makes me to the see the positivity in every situation no matter how hard it is for me.

This one skill has changed my life completely. As I write now, my boy hugs and kisses me for no reason. I get goosebumps for living through the moments like this. Thankfully I didn’t dismiss this wonderful minute of my life as an insignificant event and just opt to worry about my other pressing problems of life.

For a good reason I have changed and I am happy for it. I don’t say the journey was easy. I don’t say one fine night I started to become happy suddenly. No. It was a tough journey to find this revelation.

But practice and consistency to make me happier has made me to learn this trait.  Now I am a happier person. Yes still there are days when the world would bog me down, but I know what I should focus on the negative situations and events instead of entering the worry territory.

Do you feel grateful about life? What are the things you feel thankful at this moment? Share it here.