Strange, I have no page about gratefulness, about being grateful, where being grateful is something I have been learning about a lot the last few months, maybe the last year even. So I just create it now, after being shown a very nice video about being grateful: being grateful.

It is impossible to summarize the message in this video, but I was touched very much by the start of it, about opening your eyes and seeing all the colors, just seeing, just being able to see. And my negative mind went into all kinds of arguments that there are blind people to which the ‘seeing’ is not applicable. But of course that is not the point and not the message of this video, even though of course I guess it is a very good think to think about our blind fellow men. But I noticed that with this ‘but’ my mind went into a very negative thinking pattern, which of course takes away part of the beauty of this video, of this message.

Strange, how my Coda sponsor pushing me to work on being grateful has made a big change in my life. Right now I am able in virtually any situation, no matter how bad, also see good things, I can be grateful for the good things I see, I know that are also there.

And I am not there yet, but will I ever ‘be there’, will anybody of us humans ever ‘be there’? But, against all my resistance and against all the time and effort it too me to somehow find things to be grateful for, I believe I did become a better person by being more grateful, by looking for, or maybe just trying to look for things to be grateful for any time and in any situation.

Ah, it started by my sponsor suggesting to me, pushing me, to write down five things to be grateful for in my journal, in my notebook, every day, every night. So against all odds and against my feelings and against all my resistance I started doing that. And for quite a while I didn’t feel anything, was probably not even really grateful for the things I wrote down every night, although I think the last is not true, as I always try to really find things to be grateful for. And often they are very simple things, like I cooked a nice meal (for myself), like I had a great dinner (for myself). Or just the fact that the dogs are here with me, love me, maybe even need me. Or just that I still had money to buy the things I need, even more than the things I need, as I often still buy snacks, even though I feel financially.

And I was thinking what the link was with Napoleon Hill, with Think and Grow Rich, but now I know, as one of the things I did was repeating things, against all odds, against my feeling and thinking, the thing Napoleon Hill calls autosuggestion.

And right now I am thinking how gratitude fits into the thinking of Napoleon Hill, of Think and Grow Rich, but I don’t remember any direct mentioning of gratitude. There is something like ‘imagining as if it (the money) is already there’, and I think that is some kind of relation, as what I noticed myself is that being grateful, feeling grateful, no matter what, changes my perspective and (virtually?) always makes me feel better.