How Grateful Are We!

We as humans have odd tendencies. Here is one of them – When we get what we want, we say it is because of our hard work, our right decisions and so on. However, when we fail, we blame others, luck, God or any factor that we can’t control.

The truth is what we achieve or do not achieve is partly because of our actions and partly depends on factors beyond our control. But when we start believing that all the success, we have in life is because of our actions alone, it makes us arrogant. It makes us think we are invincible. That is a very dangerous place to be because life can throw curveballs at any time.

Let me give you an example. There are countless sports stars or music stars who were once worth hundreds of millions of dollars but are now bankrupt. How?! Here is why. When they succeeded, they got it extremely quickly. Because success came so quick, they thought it was all because of them and they thought they were invincible. So, they blew much of their money because they thought it would keep coming in forever anyway.

But money did not keep coming in forever. Had they been appreciative of what they had, they would not take it for granted. They would have worked harder to maintain it or grow it. They would have studied personal finance and invested the money into relatively safe areas while closely tracking it. This would mean, retirement or no retirement, they would always have a lot of money.

The one word that will help us protect what we have, in terms of wealth, health or family life is GRATITUDE. Gratitude simply means being appreciative of whatever good nature has given us, whether it is in a tiny quantity or a big one. It does not mean you have to be content with it, it just means you are thankful for having it.