This article is from Rabbi Zelig Pliskin's new book: "THANK YOU! Gratitude: Formulas, Stories, and Insights."
"I used to live in a dark world. I didn't realize how needlessly dark it was until I transformed what I saw and realized that I was living in a world of light the entire time."
This was told to me by an elderly gentleman many years ago. He radiated joy. He spoke with a deep sense of compassion and caring for others. I was fascinated. "Please tell me about your life and how you became to be the way you are."
"I was on the negative side. I easily focused on what was wrong with things. I saw what was wrong with what people did for me, and complained about what they didn't do. There were always things that were missing from what I would have wanted. I blamed other people for irritating me. Nothing was ever perfect enough. The sentences that would travel through my mind were consistently negative and full of complaints. I felt emotionally distressed most of the time. I felt that I was this way because of my personality, because of the way I was raised, because things are never perfect. But the main place I didn't look for my sense of happiness and well-being was in my mind.
"Then one day my entire world seemed to crumble. I was in a serious car accident. I was told I might not live. That was the most painful thing I ever heard in my life. It hurt me more than the physical pain. I thought about my entire life. The thought that was the strongest was that I had wasted much of the blessing in my life with my own sense of ingratitude. I was ungrateful to the Creator, ungrateful to the people who did the most for me, and ungrateful for everyone who did things for me my entire life. I was committed that if I would live, I would become a master of gratitude. I would appreciate all that the Almighty keeps giving me. I will appreciate His world. I will appreciate the opportunities He sends my way. I would appreciate everything and anything that anyone has done for me already and would do for me in the future.
"When I came to this realization, I felt lighter. I felt better than I had felt in a long time even though I was in pain and I didn't know what would be with me. I told myself that I wasn't going to make the mistake I had been making my entire life. I wasn't going to say that I will be grateful only if I get better and all is perfect. I was totally resolved to be become a totally grateful person from that moment on.
"The recovery period was long. But I felt grateful for every drop of improvement. I needed to come on to the kindnesses of others. I was grateful for all that everyone did for me. My entire life was filled with gratitude.
"People told me that they enjoyed being around me. My joyful way of being made them feel good. They were happy to do things for me; they gained by being in my presence since emotions are contagious. I am grateful to the Almighty for His wake-up call. I am grateful for the flow of spiritual and emotional abundance in my life."
Everyone has much to be grateful for. Gratitude creates happiness and joy. Gratitude helps you be calm and serene. Gratitude helps you connect with and love the Creator. Gratitude elevates your entire life.
By mastering gratitude, you will become truly alive. Here are 10 formulas to master gratitude.
1. Picture how great you will feel when you master gratitude. We all want to live happy lives. After studying happiness for over 30 years, I have found that a key element in every person who is truly happy is: They are grateful for all that they can be grateful for. A grateful person is a joyful person. People who are lacking happiness wonder about the missing ingredient. When you master gratitude yourself, you will easily recognize that the missing ingredient was: Gratitude.
2. Here is a one-sentence formula for becoming a grateful person: Think, Speak, and Act like a grateful person does. There is no mystery about how to become a person who has internalized the attribute of gratitude. Think gratefully. Speak gratefully. Act gratefully. When you consistently do these three things, you are consistently grateful. Even before this pattern has become consistent for you, every little bit of thinking, speaking, and acting this way makes you more grateful than if you wouldn't have thought, spoken, or acted this way.
3. You will notice what you are looking for. Someone who loves flowers notices them even though others would just pass them by. Someone who is looking for things to complain about will notice what he is looking for. And someone who hates litter will see the litter rather than seeing the birds and the flowers. Consider it important to be grateful. Then you will notice more and more kind things that others do for you. And you will remember more kind things that others have done for you in the past. These will serve as reminders for you to do similar things for others.
4. View yourself as being a person who is grateful and fervently wants to keep upgrading his level of gratitude. Your self-image creates you. Who are you? "I am a person who is full of gratitude for all that I can be grateful for." When this is how you consider yourself, you will say and do more things that will be an expression of gratitude.
5. A question you can ask yourself any time you wish is, "What am I grateful for right now?" How will it affect your life if you build up the habit of asking this question to yourself at least ten times a day? The only way that you can know for sure is to actually do it. Someone once told me that he felt annoyed by his father's habit of saying, "You know," every few sentences. He spoke to his father about it and his father found it too difficult for him to eliminate the "You knows." You know how it is, don't you? I suggested that each time he hears his father say, "You know," he should immediately ask himself, "What am I grateful for?" Not only did he become more grateful to his father, he added much gratitude and happiness to his entire life. He even became grateful to his father for having this habit.
6. Keep a gratitude journal. Thinking about gratitude is wonderful. But writing down what you are grateful for in a journal will have a much stronger effect. Seeing the items adding up on paper, gives you an ever-increasing realization that you have much for which to be grateful. Some find it beneficial to make a quota of at least five or ten things a day. Whenever you want an emotional lift, take out your journal and read it.
7. Be grateful for all your skills, abilities, talents, knowledge, inner resources and outer resources. As I am typing this, I am grateful that I can type and I am grateful to my mother for teaching me how to type when I was a young boy. When you read this, be grateful that you know how to read and that you are adding gratitude as one of your precious inner resources.
8. Be grateful for your memory and brain. The latest estimate is that we all have over 100 billion brain cells. Wherever you go, your brain with all its memories of gratitude go with you. You can access those life-enhancing memories any time you wish. What do you hear more often, people complaining about their memory or people being grateful for their magnificent, miraculous giant computer? The amount of memory the average person has stored in such a small area is mind-boggling. Some people tend to be upset by what they can't remember. Whenever you can't remember something, immediately, say to yourself, "I am grateful for all that I do remember."
9. Whenever you hear a telephone ringing, say to yourself, "I am grateful I am alive and I am grateful I can hear." The more often you will hear telephones ringing, the easier it will be for you to increase your level of gratitude.
10. Associate the word gratitude with: happiness, joy, bliss, euphoria, ecstasy. How do you do this? Whenever you feel positive feelings of gratitude, enthusiastically say, "Happiness, joy, bliss, euphoria, ecstasy." If you want to make this really work well, look in a mirror as you do so. Think thoughts of gratitude and see the smile of gratitude on your face. As you keep applying these 10 formulas, you will create yourself into a happy, grateful person.
© 2005 Zelig Pliskin
This article is from Rabbi Zelig Pliskin's new book: "THANK YOU! Gratitude: Formulas, Stories, and Insights."
(15) daniel haymann, September 1, 2020 8:16 PM
hi i would like to adress this comment to rabbi pliskin. i have just written a hebrew book on the laws of gratitude based on chazal rishonim and gedolei achronim. i would like to speak to Rabbi Pliskin regarding working together to translate my book into english and enhancing it so that it would be appealing to an english speaking crowd
thanks
Daniel Haymann
(14) Lisa, June 30, 2013 6:51 AM
Knowing what your grateful for is very powerful...
I will feel more grateful with more Rabbi Pliskin articles!!
(13) Anonymous, November 29, 2009 3:29 AM
wow
wow thank you!
(12) Georgiann Melton, July 9, 2005 12:00 AM
Thank You
I just read your article from Rabbi Zelig Pliskin's book "Thank You!...
I really enjoyed it!!!
(11) nedra, June 5, 2005 12:00 AM
thanks
thank you very much i could feel myself breaking free of some things that were holding me down as i read your article im very grateful to you
(10) Merlock, June 3, 2005 12:00 AM
Thank You, Rabbi Pliskin
Thank you for your suggestions; I've been trying to be a more grateful person, and agree we all should be more grateful, especially with how material-and fatalistic people seem to be right now. I will try to follow your suggestions, most particularly Number 5; thanks again.
(9) Chaiah Schwab, May 29, 2005 12:00 AM
I'm grateful you remind us of this wisdom.
I know you are right. I'm grateful you remind us of this wisdom. I've been using my journals for both complaints and gratitude. I will try only gratitude now.
(8) Marilyn Irick, May 28, 2005 12:00 AM
Building Gratitude
Bravo Rabbi Zelig!
I was moved by your insight on building gratitude and began to realize the positives always out weighs the negatives.
I find that gratitude is positively generated when we see and experience things through our love for G-d who created them all! And you have brought this kindly to the surface!
(7) Mark Douglas Obenour, May 28, 2005 12:00 AM
Thanks for Teaching us to Focus on the Important
Rabbi Plishkin thank you for teaching us the art of REFRAMING! Your teaching to refocus on the positive things that we can be grateful for is one of the positive reformative things in my life right now. I would like to thank all of the Rabbi's at aish.com but especially you for sharing your talent in helping us to focus on how to overcome evil with good by reframing.
Your books that I could afford so far have touched my heart and I look forward to future lessons. Thanks again
to you and all the other Rabbis who through your particular "people skills"
and talents that the creator has given you that you get Hashem's instruction to us in a way that finally sinks in.
(6) Anonymous, May 25, 2005 12:00 AM
Thank you!
Thanks to you for a beautiful article!
(5) raye, May 25, 2005 12:00 AM
Gratitude for little daily miracles as well as the big ones
I never cease to wonder at the daily encounters with people I meet here in Jerusalem since I arrived a few months ago. Last week, there were two people who went to my highschool in New York. When people ask me where I'm from, they were related to or were friends with some of my neighbors.
As for major miracles, I am here to tell the tale of an angel in human form being sent to me as a private nurse after major surgery. The anaesthetic made me very ill and she rocked me back and forth until I vomited it all out. Without her ministrations, I might have remained an invalid or not lived to tell the tale. And this happened long before I became a baalot techuvah.
(4) RUTH, May 24, 2005 12:00 AM
Thank you Rabbi Pliskin for everything you've published and done for my son in Israel. HaShem should give you and your family much Yiddish nachas and long life.
(3) Ida Dvorkina, May 23, 2005 12:00 AM
When Ill read I ll make comments
I hope it will help me to be a better person and understanf the dipper level of life.
(2) Anonymous, May 23, 2005 12:00 AM
Absolutely beautiful.
(1) Anonymous, May 22, 2005 12:00 AM
Thank you
Every Sunday morning I come to the Aish.com website and enjoy the new articles that are posted.
THANK YOU!