Giving Thanks

[Wiseacre]

Giving thanks once in awhile is good thing to do, whether you believe in God or not. It makes you more humble and less narcistic, more appreciative of what you've got and who you share it with. We could all do with a little more humility and a little less narcissism, whether you're the most devoted atheist or agnostic or the most devout member of your religion. If you don't believe in God, fine. Make Thanksgiving about you, being a better person to be around. Make it about trying to forge more and better relationships; trust me, that's how you create a better life for yourself.

Happy Thanksgiving to everybody!

 

[masquerade]

Every day I find something to be thankful for.
The more thankful I am, the more reasons I find to be thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours Wiseacre.

 

[techieny]

Giving thanks once in awhile is good thing to do, whether you believe in God or not. It makes you more humble and less narcistic, more appreciative of what you've got and who you share it with. We could all do with a little more humility and a little less narcissism, whether you're the most devoted atheist or agnostic or the most devout member of your religion. If you don't believe in God, fine. Make Thanksgiving about you, being a better person to be around. Make it about trying to forge more and better relationships; trust me, that's how you create a better life for yourself.

Happy Thanksgiving to everybody!

GREAT post!!!

 

[random3434]

Giving thanks once in awhile is good thing to do, whether you believe in God or not. It makes you more humble and less narcistic, more appreciative of what you've got and who you share it with. We could all do with a little more humility and a little less narcissism, whether you're the most devoted atheist or agnostic or the most devout member of your religion. If you don't believe in God, fine. Make Thanksgiving about you, being a better person to be around. Make it about trying to forge more and better relationships; trust me, that's how you create a better life for yourself.

Happy Thanksgiving to everybody!

Amen! Less time being angry, and more time appreciating what you do have.

We Americans are darn lucky for ALL we have, and anyone that is blessed with a loving family have all they need.

I thank God every day for my blessings, and know how lucky I am.

 

[California Girl]

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Thankful people is happy people...

Giving thanks helps your psychological outlook
Tue Nov 22, WASHINGTON – Count your blessings this Thanksgiving. It's good for you.

While it seems pretty obvious that gratitude is a positive emotion, psychologists for decades rarely delved into the science of giving thanks. But in the last several years they have, learning in many experiments that it is one of humanity's most powerful emotions. It makes you happier and can change your attitude about life, like an emotional reset button. Especially in hard times, like these. Beyond proving that being grateful helps you, psychologists also are trying to figure out the brain chemistry behind gratitude and the best ways of showing it. "Oprah was right," said University of Miami psychology professor Michael McCullough, who has studied people who are asked to be regularly thankful. "When you are stopping and counting your blessings, you are sort of hijacking your emotional system."

And he means hijacking it from out of a funk into a good place. A very good place. Research by McCullough and others finds that giving thanks is a potent emotion that feeds on itself, almost the equivalent of being victorious. It could be called a vicious circle, but it's anything but vicious. He said psychologists used to underestimate the strength of simple gratitude: "It does make people happier ... It's that incredible feeling." One of the reasons why gratitude works so well is that it connects us with others, McCullough said. That's why when you give thanks it should be more heartfelt and personal instead of a terse thank you note for a gift or a hastily run-through grace before dinner, psychologists say.

Chicago area psychologist and self-help book author Maryann Troiani said she starts getting clients on gratitude gradually, sometimes just by limiting their complaints to two whines a session. Then she eventually gets them to log good things that happened to them in gratitude journals: "Gratitude really changes your attitude and your outlook on life." Gratitude journals or diaries, in which people list weekly or nightly what they are thankful for, are becoming regular therapy tools. And in those journals, it is important to focus more on the people you are grateful for, said Robert Emmons, a psychology professor at the University of California, Davis. Concentrate on what life would be without the good things — especially people such as spouses — in your life and how you are grateful they are there, he said.

Grateful people "feel more alert, alive, interested, enthusiastic. They also feel more connected to others," said Emmons, who has written two books on the science of gratitude and often studies the effects of those gratitude diaries. "Gratitude also serves as a stress buffer," Emmons said in an e-mail interview. "Grateful people are less likely to experience envy, anger, resentment, regret and other unpleasant states that produce stress." Scientists are not just looking at the emotions behind gratitude but the nuts-and-bolts physiology as well. Preliminary theories look at the brain chemistry and hormones in the blood and neurotransmitters in the brain that are connected to feelings of gratitude, Emmons said. And the left prefrontal cortex of the brain, which is also associated with positive emotions like love and compassion, seems to be a key spot, especially in Buddhist monks, Emmons said. However it works in the brain, Emmons said there is little doubt that it works.

More Giving thanks helps your psychological outlook - Yahoo! News

 

[Jebril]

I try to appreciate what I have in my life as often as I can, it makes it easier to hold onto things you've learn not to take for granted.

I respect the ideology behind Thanksigivng, I wish people didn't need a day for it and lived by it.

 

[Sky Dancer]

Every moment that I refrain from retaliating when I am hurt, I give thanks.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Giving thanks once in awhile is good thing to do, whether you believe in God or not. It makes you more humble and less narcistic, more appreciative of what you've got and who you share it with. We could all do with a little more humility and a little less narcissism, whether you're the most devoted atheist or agnostic or the most devout member of your religion. If you don't believe in God, fine. Make Thanksgiving about you, being a better person to be around. Make it about trying to forge more and better relationships; trust me, that's how you create a better life for yourself.

Happy Thanksgiving to everybody!

John Baillie
The very fact that a man is thankful implies someone to be thankful to.

Erma Bombeck
Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.

Arnold Schwarzenegger
I love Thanksgiving turkey... it's the only time in Los Angeles that you see natural breasts.

Kevin James
Thanksgiving, man! Not a good day to be my pants.

Johannes A. Gaertner
To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven.

H. U. Westermayer
The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.

Meister Eckhart
If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, 'thank you,' that would suffice.

George Herbert
Thou that has given so much to me,
Give one thing more -- a grateful heart;
Not thankful when it pleases me,
As if Thy blessings had spare days;
But such a heart, whose pulse may be
Thy praise.


To all board members, to you and yours, a happy and safe Thanksgiving.

 

[strollingbones]

to family and friends.....to the loud appalachian americans, to the tat covered hellions, to those in uniform and those without....i am thankful we preserver during the hard times and rejoice during the good times.....

to all a toast ....for nothing more than family and friends.....for that is all we really have....

 

[Foxfyre]

I am thankful for (in no particular order). . . .

USMB that has provided fun, affection, laughter, useful information, some intellectual stimulation, and an opportunity to get to know some very lovable, interesting, and/or special people. (Yeah, I know there are downsides too, but what in life doesn't have a downside?)

A home that provides warmth, security, refuge, and a place to just be.

A loving husband for a very long time now, children who have been more blessing than a pain in the neck, a mostly terrific family, neighbors, great friends, and colleagues.

Enough prosperity to meet all my needs and even a few wants now and then.

Opportunity for a relationship with a great God.

Enough health and mental stability to appreciate it all.

(Oh and Chocolate!)