Make Gratitude a Practice Instead of a Hashtag

#begrateful #sothankful #gratitude

These concepts are always trending. We always seem to advertise our gratitude for friends, family, colleagues, resources, and our health. And, we desperately want our gratitude to be validated by having others “like” our posts about what we are grateful for. However, gratefulness and gratitude aren’t things that can be accomplished by hash-tagging on social media.

Gratitude is not a trend, which by definition, implies it will only be around for a short time.

Gratitude is a practice. This means we must donate time and effort to gratitude, and employ self-discipline to create a habit out of showing others we are thankful.

When we make gratitude into a personal tradition, our perceptions shift naturally to allow more gratitude into our lives. We are more able to acknowledge that when people are nice to us, they are doing it on purpose, so that we can benefit from their “time, treasure, or talent." Recognizing when others are grateful helps us to feel good; moreover, it inspires us to do good things for others.

Gratitude helps us “see ourselves as part of a larger, intricate network of sustaining relationships that are mutually reciprocal." It is in this cyclical rhythm of thankfulness that we are able to really to feed the trend toward gratitude, so that this virtue continues to nourish our lives.

When we make gratitude a practice instead of a hashtag, we will able to flourish and thrive.