Tag: Facebook

RELATIVITY

“When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute – and it’s longer than any hour. That’s relativity.”

-Albert Einstien

Often complicated terms are quite often best explained using real world examples. Setting aside my experiences of sitting with pretty girls, this example seems to demonstrate another important aspect for our lives. That is the relativity of any situation. What do I mean? The answer to that can be found by answering another question I am frequently asked, “Neil how do you remain positive even when going through a very negative situation?” Well I simply see how things are relative. Let us just pretend you are not thrilled with your job. You can visit your local unemployment office and see the desperation in the eyes of people looking for any kind of work. This principle was brought to my attention in a big way a few weeks ago. I was taking a friend to the hospital as they did not have transportation. I was a bit ill myself, nothing major perhaps a cold or the flu. It was early in the morning and following dropping this friend at their next destination I had to then go into work. As I sit in the waiting room thinking about how much I would rather be in bed sleeping and using that time to feel better, wishing I could return to my warm and waiting bed instead of going to work for ‘the man’. I must confess I even started to question my decision to help my friend when I was sick myself. As I sat there in a world of frustration, pity and sinus pressure a message was sent to me that couldn’t have been any louder. I believe I had closed my eyes to try and get some brief moments of rest in the oh so comfortable waiting room chairs when the silence was broke by a young child’s voice yelling “Daddy! Daddy!” With a slight feeling of being disturbed out of the few seconds of sleep I was hoping to find I opened my eyes. What did I see? A young boy about the age of six who was going through some serious treatment as he looked quite thin and was missing all of his hair. It was more what he wasn’t missing that delivered the message to me. This brave young man was wearing one of the biggest smiles I have ever seen. With all of his enthusiasm he asked “Daddy do you think the cancer will go away so I can go back to school with the rest of my friends?” The look in his father’s eyes showed that he did not share the young child’s positive outlook. Suddenly I felt rather guilty. Here I was filled with self-pity for my head cold and having the honor of helping a friend who could really use it. I was healthy enough to work unlike this child who would have given anything just to return to his ‘job’. Intellectually I know the saying “Somebody always has it worse than you” but here is a young child with a serious illness who is enthusiastic and focused on becoming healthy again. I had a simple cold or flu and I am feeling like the world is out to get me. Normally guilt is not an emotion I recommend people even experience because they tend to let it weigh them down like an anchor. Even guilt can serve a great purpose when used properly. I let my guilt and shame (another emotion you should normally avoid) to drive into my often thick head that even our troubles are relative and though they may seem like a burden to us they would be a blessing to others. If I would have asked that young cancer patient if he would rather be sent to school with a terrible cold I am sure the young man would have jumped at the chance. He also reminded me a lesson I am usually teaching others but that I also need to be reminded of. How we approach our situations often goes a long way to determining their outcomes. If I had approached my minor health issue with the same positivity this young man approached his serious one I would have undoubtedly been feeling a lot better. I noticed watching this young man interact with people in the waiting room I was already feeling a lot better. By the time my friend was done with her visit I had a smile on my face and was thankful to be going into work. So remember to try and keep a positive focus on our lives even when they seem challenging. Feel free to print out this story if it will help you remember better. I know the experience certainly was a great reminder for me.

PERSPECTIVE

In former posts I have talked about the importance of the way we look at situations. As I have also stated living an amazing life is a lifelong journey and not a goal to be reached. We all have much to learn. I would like to offer an example from my own life. Recently I had been discussing issues that were quite meaningful between another person and myself. It left me feeling rather connected to this person and quite special. Well a few days later this person had told me they had presented those very details we were discussing specifically when I was not there. Suddenly I felt hurt, like maybe the issues were not as much of a connection as I had thought. Have you ever noticed when your feel hurt your mind just seems to take over and make all sorts of connections that may or may not even make sense? Well that is what happened here. I began to wonder if perhaps the connection I thought had developed with this person may not have been as close as I had hoped. Perhaps there was no real connection at all. Even typing that makes it sound crazy. Knowing what I know of this person and the things we have shared in the past this thought should not have even entered my mind. A good fact to note here is when rational thought and emotion run into each other it is like a semi running into a sports car, emotion will always win. I had decided that this person did this so it meant that. Why would I do that? They are always several reasons. Past experiences when others have done the same and I ended up hurt? Misjudging what I know of this person? Living in reaction instead of action? So what to do when you find yourself in this situation. Well nine times out of ten if you are waiting to ask this question until you are in that situation you are probably to late. Again this site is about being proactive. So what actions can we begin to take today to help us should such a situation come up in our future? Here is the bad news, because we all are unique individuals with unique rules and experiences somebody in your future will hurt or disappoint you. Not even because they are trying to, but because they look at life different from you do. So knowing that how can we minimize the chances of being stuck in a train of thought like I was yesterday? Begin to develop a positive perspective. When something happens that you feel another person has let you down try to come up with as many positive explanations as you can. It may be hard at first, especially if you have been hurt in the past. When you ask why this person did this answers may begin to fill your head like “because they’re a jerk” “because they don’t care” pull the brake. Begin by trying to get at least one positive option. Maybe they simply did not understand what their actions would have meant to you? Maybe some even occurred in their life that caused them to have to make a change without being able to tell you. Maybe their actions mean something entirely different to them? Keep practice doing this. Why? I will give you two great reasons. One, you will feel hurt a lot less or at less not feel hurt as often. Two, you will find a lot less conflict with those you really care about. Let’s face it the more you care about someone the more they can make you feel amazing, but the more they can hurt you.

So how did my situation end up? Luckily this person has an amazing grasp on personal relations and a large dose of patience with me. They could tell that I was feeling upset and asked what they may have done. After some expert cajoling I explained that the ideas they expressed I felt were special between us and I was a bit(which at this point was an understatement)hurt that they chose to present them when I wasn’t even around. To my surprised they agreed that indeed they felt they were as special, if not more, than I did. They also went on to explain the reason they chose to express them for the first time when I wasn’t around was because they wanted to be able to do so flawlessly by the time we were together. So initially I just felt like a total jerk for even being upset. Still being one for learning from my mistakes I tried to see what I could selvage out of this experience. Here is what I learned. I have a lot to learn. One I learned I have one amazing person in my life who really does care more than I realized. I also learned that I still let my past affect me and the relationships I have in the present. Which is not only terribly unfair to that person, but also to yourself. I also learned I could probably learn to express how things make me feel in the future. Most importantly I learned that I really need to work on developing a more positive perspective on people and why they do the things they do. So I will be following the very steps I gave you earlier. As well as being grateful for the amazing people I have in my life. Tomorrow we will look at how we can productively expressing what we like and how to actually make people want to do those very things.

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE…NOW?

Last blog we discussed what to do if people have upset us in the past and we are still letting it bother us. Today we will examine a great way to reduce the stress and strain of people upsetting us in the present. How to deal with that face to face anger that sometimes we may encounter.

If you work with the public, or deal with the public or even just deal with other people in your daily life, which should just about cover everybody, one of the greatest and most common challenges is…well other people. We all know if everybody in our lives would just play by our rules and understand that we are always right there would be no issue there. Unfortunately the boss does not always understand how difficult it is to get out of a warm bed on a cold day. Your spouse may not always understand how ‘one more drink’ became three. In other words the bad news is at some point in your life people will be mad at you. On a rare occasion they may even have a reason to be. So what than? How can we somehow not get stressed about someone screaming in close proximity to us? How can we use a person who is practicing replacing our name with different profanities as a growing experience? As I try to improve my own life these are the type of questions I find myself asking. Trust me if you wait until that person is in front of you to ask the question you may decide to distress by closing their mouth for them and the only thing growing may be your legal problems. So here is a little exercise you can get used to and practice that I find turns those experiences literally into a game and often leaves both parties feeling better when parting. A big promise, but I think if you stick with me you will see how it all comes together and thus reduce one of the most common stresses from your life.

here is the ‘magic formula’, it may sound to simple, it may sound like it will not work, but trust me after you master it you will be successful nine times out of ten. There are some people who just have severe social issues and cannot be reached. They are not our concern and really should be used as humorous fodder. So what is the idea already? Here is the plan. First, let the people vent for a little while. I don’t know when I am upset being interrupted can only be equated to throwing gasoline on a fire. When you feel you have a grasp of what ever life threatening event has them ready to start the next world war, then interrupt. Now, there is a very specific way to do this. Even if the event is pretty cut and dry, such as your dog does not understand property lines when needing to relive himself, still recap with a simple phrase showing you are interested in their issue. An example is “Just to make sure we are on the same page…” or “To make sure I understand what is upsetting you…” in addition to showing them you care it forces you to listen to what they are saying as you are pondering just how to word your question. The next thing is something that can totally turn this person who may be picturing you in some terrible compromising position into your best friend. While listening to there list of complaints with the state of the world, look for something you can honestly compliment them on. Do they have a nice shirt on? Are they wearing a nice fragrance? this part takes practice and skill as does bringing it to their attention. I caution you not to try flattery which I am not a big fan of anyway, false praise comes across as such and can often generate further anger. It is even better if you can ask them a question about the compliment. The reason you want to do this is because it forces them to think about what you said. A great example of how to do this would be “I understand you are upset fido fertilized your flowers without asking, but I have to ask you what is that amazing fragrance you are wearing? It smells so familiar but I can’t quite place it?” I have even taken it one step further, but I will get to that in a moment. after discussing a legitimate compliment paid in their favor, and again a stress make it real, you would be surprised how the conversation can change.

All of this may sound unbelievable so let me provide a recent example. A lady walked into the post office with a bill for her post office box that was due on January 31st. She had come in on the 28th to discover that the price had went up 2 dollars from the amount shown. No notice was given to her and she already had her check made out. She wasn’t late, the price had just changed. She had a right to be upset. This woman, however, took it one step further and went on for roughly ten minutes on the lack of intelligence of the lady helping her, how terrible the organization was. By the time I was called up there she had worked herself into quite a stressful state for both her and all of those around her. I calmly asked if I could make sure I had this right. “You are upset because you are paying a pill that you were told would be one amount if paid by the 31st and here it is the 28th and we are asking for two dollars more? I don’t blame you for being upset” That simple act of understanding why she was upset started to calm her down. I explained that our goal was to get her Post office box renewed and that regretfully our computers did not allow us to charge her the old price. She suddenly ‘remembered’ she had two dollars in the car. As she walked out (which gave her time to breath as well as the sales associate) I started thinking I needed to find something nice to point about this lady. When she walked back in I noticed she had black pants and a plain black jacket. No luck there. Her hair was cut short and simple. Again not much to work with. She had no discernible wonderful scent. Then I noticed the rims on her glasses were an awesome red color I had never seen. Keep in mind I went through all of this in about 1 minute. If you just stand there staring at someone who may cause the anger level to rise again. So I said “I thank you for understanding about this unfortunate computer error with our pricing and I wish to get you taken care of right away, but as I am doing so I have to ask where you purchased those glasses I have never seen such an amazing color” She thought for a second and told me the name of the store. I knew there was one close to where I live and asked her if that was the location she went to. She told me no it was the one down the street. I again told her I would love to see what color they have for men and could she tell me what street it was on. (I don’t wear glasses by the way). She thought again and gave me cross streets. I thanked her for the information and began to apologize for the misunderstanding she came in for in the first place. Her reply shocked everyone who was there “No I should have paid my bill right when I got it” I countered with “Truly we will look into notifying people if the price changes in the future. I can understand how upsetting that would be” She replied “It’s not that upsetting. I’m sorry you just caught me on a bad day” So there may have been more to this lady’s anger. She left apologizing to me and I think feeling if she did not have a good experience and least did not have a bad one.

Enough practice with this and you almost feel as though you are playing a game. I felt a sense of accomplishment when that lady left. She felt a little less upset. I think it was a win for all parties concerned.

GIVE THE PERFECT GIFT

I originally started this site because I wanted to create more joy in my own life, and wanted to share the tips I discovered in my journey with anyone else who may be on the same path. One of the greatest gifts this website has given back to me is the continuing discovery of new and exciting ways to improve the quality of my life. I am constantly looking to strengthen anything I think needs work on me. Luckily I have no shortage of flaws to work on. We all do. They may all be different, but they are all a blessing in disguise. Challenges and imperfections give us a chance to learn and to grow. Plus, the pressure on somebody who is perfect would be more than I could bear. One of the interesting things about me is that on occasion I stress over gift giving. I always want to give the perfect gift. Of course I would recommend my book  A Happy Life for Busy People which captures the very best of this blog. That may be just a shameless self-promotion. Actually my wonderful friend Cheryl gave me the best gift idea ever. If somebody asked you what gift you would want if you could have anything, what would it be? Chances are the answers here will be varied. Diamonds? A new sports car? A promotion at your job? Roses from an admirer? Why do we want any of these things? Diamonds could make us feel extremely valuable. A new sports car? Well that could certainly makes us feel powerful or really cool. Promotion at work could give us a sense of importance. Roses from an admirer would most certainly make us feel loved. I know what you are thinking, “Neil these are not one gift, they are many gifts. On top of that, all of these gifts are different” Very true indeed. What if I were to tell you there was a gift that could make you feel all of these things? It would make you feel more valued than a diamond, more cool than a sports car, more important than a promotion and more loved than several dozen roses! Would you not want to go out and buy that gift for the most important person on your gift giving list? Would you not want to give this gift for the most important of all occasions? Well I have good news and bad news for you. First the bad news, you cannot buy this gift. It is not available for any dollar amount and cannot be created by anyone other than you. No, in fact this gifts only price is a few moments of your time, some honest reflection and a pen and paper. That is the good news, this powerful priceless gift is available to anyone! Ok, so you have read this far and stuck with me, what is this gift already? Well, here it is. An honest and heartfelt letter of appreciation and gratitude. You may be tempted to dismiss this as trivial…don’t! Think of how you would feel receiving a letter from someone in your life not only expressing their appreciation for you, but going in-depth as to why they appreciate you and all the things you have done for them. How easy to you think it would be to write and give one of those letters to someone? Here is a little secret for all of my shy friends. The letter still works (although not nearly as well) even if you do not give it to them. Sitting down and writing out all the ways you appreciate someone and all they have done for you will change the way you view and thus treat that person. I also imagine that the energy will be picked up in some subtle way by that person. Of course the feelings would be far more intense and have a far greater effect if they could actually read the letter. Give it a try. Write one, maybe even hang on to it a while. Just see how life changes. Maybe shoot for writing one a week. Pick a different person each week. Tomorrow we will discuss another once a week action you can employ that will have a great effect on your life this coming year…

DON’T BE A BULLY

This was a post that I had written earlier but I delayed due to a tragedy in a good friends family. There has been a lot of attention to bullying lately and rightfully so. With the internet childhood teasing can be spread with lightning speed to entire classes, schools even across the globe. What may seem like harmless childhood joking can have devastating effects. Recently a good friend of mine had a relative kill himself at the young age of 15. Why? In a nutshell he did not feel as though he was well liked. I am sure the other kids who made him feel that way had no intention of driving him to that point. That, however, is precisely the point here. We never know exactly how our words or actions may be interpreted by another. So parents, if you hear your child engaging in bullying activity put an end to it right away. On the flip side, never lose a moment to remind our children how loved, valuable and amazing they are.

That brings me to my next point. This may seem like a childhood issue, but sadly it is not. It just goes by a different name as adults. Gossip. What used to be water cooler gossip can now spread quickly through Facebook, twitter and even text messaging. We somehow assume adults are ‘tougher’ or better able to handle such things. The truth is jobs have been lost, people’s reputations destroyed and lives ruined by what some view as harmless gossip. The only kind of gossip that is harmless is good gossip. It never fails to amaze me how few times I hear conversations about how kind, helpful, beautiful someone is when they are not around versus how much I hear conversations about how stupid, crazy or ugly someone may be. Think of how this is in your life? How often to you hear or engage in positive gossip? How about negative gossip? Be honest with yourself here nobody is listening but us. I know I have been guilty of this myself. When you spread or engage in gossip of a negative nature you are being nothing more than an adult bully. Here is another important idea to ponder. Would you trust a person who is always speaking negatively of others? What do you think they may say about you when you are not around? As the new year approaches one of my resolutions is to do away with negative gossip in my life entirely and replace it with more quality positive gossip. As my stylist and good friend Kelly says it is as simple as “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”

WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG FOR A VERY IMPORTANT MESSAGE…

In place of the usually bits of wisdom and inspiration we have a special announcement. Today marks the one year anniversary of the very first post on this blog. Today I am feeling an overwhelming sense of gratitude to quite a few people. Ironically the first post I ever created was entitled ‘gratitude’ If you haven’t read it before I encourage you to scroll back and check it out. Several reasons this is good. One, is to see how much better this blog has gotten. Two, to see how full circle we have come and three because out of all the traits you can develop to turn your life around gratitude would probably be the biggest. it is impossible to feel fearful while feeling grateful. It is impossible to feel sad while feeling completely grateful. I just want to take a second and throw a few names out there that make this all possible. I want to thank Aileen who in her own unique way helped me discover my true purpose in life and get this thing all turned around. I wish to thank Kristina who not only continues to encourage me, but gave me great information and motivation to do both this blog and my upcoming book. Never would I thought we would have become such good friends, but I am glad we did. Alysa and Carmen, I know I have mentioned you a million times, but truly you have no idea how much your words that one fateful evening pushed me forward. To Kim who daily gives me so much feedback and insight which helps make everything I do that much better. you are amazing and honestly I’m not sure I would’ve kept this up without you. Kierston, thank you for reminding me of what is possible when we follow our dreams! Margie, thank you for being a recent blessing to my life. Your creative influence will only continue to be a greater blessing. Janell, thank you for all the well wishes. May your journey find it’s joy. Michelle, my amazing sister, not only do you give me great constructive criticism, but you are a better promoter than I will ever be. Love you to pieces. To my publisher Brooke, you must have the patient of a saint. I thank you for all your understanding! All the people who read this blog, take time to comment or share this site, or now our Facebook page with those you love and care about or just people you know are looking to improve your life, I thank you for coming with me on this amazing journey! I promise tomorrow we will return to the inspiration. As we look forward to all that we are going to become and accomplish let us have a moment to pause and be grateful for all we have learned and become wiser, healthier and more enlightened this past year!

NEW AVENUES TO EXPLORE…

Sometimes a path seems so obvious that you cannot believe you have not wandered down it before. Such is a new Facebook page dedicated to this very blog. In a never-ending search to reach more souls dedicated to and searching for ways to live life to the fullest and bring as much joy to their lives as well as the lives of others, I forgot the ever popular social media giant. So for those of you who may be looking for additional motivational and inspirational ideas, or just feel more comfortable reading a Facebook page I invite you to join our new page. It is simply Secret2anamazinglife. There you can interact by posting your own comments, pictures or inspirational stories. You can also view other followers advice on living the most joyful and positive life you can.

After accomplishing this it caused me to pause and ponder, which I must confess to doing quite often. I began to ask myself some very interesting questions. Unlike the ones I ask when I have had too much rum, these you may also want to ask yourself as well. I began to wonder what other paths have been presented to me that I may have overlooked. New places to meet friends? New places to donate my time and ideas? New places to help? So this week I am going to try to step out of the box and see what I might be missing. I encourage you to do the same. Much like our new online avenue to bring joy to others, where can we do the same offline? Take a look in your own life. Where/what/who would benefit from having a little more of you around. If you have any suggestions for us to share, feel free to leave them in the comments here or on our new page and thank you for all of your support!

FINDING THE SECRET TO LIFE IN JUNK MAIL!

I must say again that one of the best side effects of dedicating my life to the secrets of discovering new ways to uncover joy is the ability to turn things that annoy most people daily into moments of inspiration! As fortune would have it for those of you reading it, you can use my experience to quickly turn things in your life from bringing you stress and annoyance to moments of joy and inspiration. Today’s example…junk mail. We all get it. I see piles of it being recycled at the post office daily. catalogs, advertisements, coupons, charity requests. So how can all of these pieces of paper that keep our mailboxes warm deliver any sort of inspiration? Anyone who follows this blog on a fairly regular basis knows that I am a fan of the law of attraction. It often intertwines with the secret to happiness. For those of you not familiar with the law of attraction in a nutshell it is the theory that like attracts like and that our thoughts go a good way into establishing our reality. So what does all of this metaphysical theory have to do with the add for the local automotive repair shop? It provides us a great reminder of this law and its power. It also gives us a great insight into where we place our focus. Still confused? Let me provide you with a personal example in hopes to tie all of this together. One day I had ordered some energy vitamins from this website geared towards men’s products. Soon there after interesting ads starting showing up in my mailbox. Ads for adventure vacations. Ads for vitamins to give you a little extra energy in the bedroom, even a few letters from ladies who were apparently a little lonely but would gladly be my friend for a small fee. It was obvious, the vitamin site had sold my address. It struck me how this was a great parallel to the law of attraction. When you focus your thoughts in a certain kind of subject matter it is like ordering a product from a catalog. The universe soon starts sending you products similar in fashion. Thinking of how much weight you are gaining and staying upset about it? Perhaps the button may pop off your pants. A shirt you just wore that was shrunk in the dryer fits too tight and must be given away. You weigh to much for the children’s ride at the carnival. What is the power in all of this? It works the opposite way as well. When you start focusing on how grateful you are for a certain friend and all the wonderful things they do for you, you may very well start meeting people of a similar nature or your friends may start to go out of their way to do kind things for you. It also is a great way to shed a light on where are focus is. In the ‘recommended pages’ on my Facebook page which is the equivalent to online junk mail I am an receiving requests for pages with positive quotes, marketing advice, advice for authors. It shows me where my focus is. So next time you pull heaps of junk mail out of your mailbox, ask yourself this important question “What can I learn from this?” and “how can I use this junk to inspire me?” Now, I even have an idea for telemarketers…but I will save that for another day! Have a great weekend my friends!

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?

Recently I was out on the town with a person very close to me and what to me seemed out of nowhere asked me a question in a rather spirited manner. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Catching me a bit of guard, I didn’t quite know what to say. Which, for anyone who knows me is a miracle itself. Although I contemplated beginning to list every short coming I thought I had I guessed they were seeking an answer to a more specific question. After requesting a little clarity I discovered what was bothering them about me that day. This was her reply “we have been to the different places today and you have went out of your way to be overly nice to everyone we have encountered. What the hell is wrong with you? Don’t you ever just do your business?” Funny thing is this was the second time this issue has been brought to my attention. It’s true in this busy world people often do not have time for any conversation that is not completely necessary. So why bother being friendly? Great question. Being friendly in the course of interacting brings a host of benefits to both parties. First of all the obvious answer is you make the person you are being nice to feel good. That is pretty straight forward. You also create a foundation for future relations. How is that possible. If you take a few extra minutes to show kindness to a stranger that person is far more likely to remember you. In any future interactions you have with that person they are likely to be far more pleasurable than if you have just conducted your business. You also build a relationship with that person which you never know when that may come in handy. We are all so interdependent it only makes sense to be in good graces with as many different people and as many people as you can. Plus, in any situation you make someone smile, you leave feeling better. Good ahead and be nice for selfish reasons! So if you find yourself not even extending a simple decent courtesy to people you encounter not to mention trying to spread joy wherever you go I must ask you a question, What the hell is wrong with you??

 

A WHOLE MONTH OF IT!

We find ourselves in the month of November. Here is the USA we celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving. Although I am no fan of cold weather I am a big fan of a holiday dedicated to reflecting on all we have to be grateful for. I have seen something happening on facebook that I would love to encourage all of us to do. A few of my friends have decided to post one thing a day that they are grateful for. If you have followed this blog for any length of time you know I am a big fan of creating lists. Lists of things that make us happy, lists of our favorite people, or a list of things to be grateful for. The problem with lists if twofold. First, it seems like a project to some people. Sitting down and having to come up with ten or twenty things can seem so daunting that many just skip it all together. Second, once the list is complete the process is over. Unless you look at the list every day it may escape your thoughts all together. By just picking one thing a day for a month not only is it not so overwhelming, but daily you are focused on maintaining an attitude of gratitude. Now I realize we are already at the fourth of the month, but that should not matter. We can go for 26 days or until the fourth of December. Just try this simple thing for 30 days. Whether you share it on Facebook, or simply write it down in a notebook be sure to follow your thought with a concrete action. Maybe a special section in your journal. After 30 days it will be exciting to notice the change in your life. Not only that, but you will now have created that list of thirty things you have to be grateful for. Gratitude is a powerful emotion. It displaces fear. You cannot be fearful while you are feeling grateful. It replaces sadness. You cannot feel sad while you are feeling grateful. So keep your list handy for a day when the blues come a calling. Second you will find yourself searching your life for things to be grateful for that you can pick as your daily item. By doing this you will have trained your brain to develop a grateful attitude. So why not try it. It takes all of 60 seconds a day of thinking and writing and can change your life for the better. How much easier and more powerful can we make it?