Say The Words, Thank You!

I was watching a YouTube video today that a man, not a full time YouTuber, posted. He posted the video hoping it would get to a certain full time YouTuber that is a newsperson (yes, an actual independent reporter) thanking him for providing informative, quality, unbiased news. Apparently it has deeply affected him to be able to get accurate, well researched news which has then allowed him to make informed choices in his life.

Now, this was my take away from the video: he said thank you for what you do because it has helped him. The reporter does a great job, I am actually a subscriber because he does do a really good job at sticking to factual news instead of throwing a crazy slant on it. So hopefully my opening statement wasn’t much of an embellishment. It is hard to convey the emotion, presence and tone of a video with a sentence or two.

It really got me thinking about something that has often been present in my thoughts; we don’t say the words “thank you” nearly as often as we should.

We are taught from an early age that we should say the words “please” and “thank you.” I am of the opinion that you should be using the words “thank you” far more often because you should not be asking for things more often than being grateful for what you have. Some of you already know that I have two young children. It is very common in the house to hear an adult reminding them to use “please” and “thank you” frequently. I have taught them that the proper way to ask for anything whether it is a glass of water or sitting with someone while watching a show involves the word “please.” I am even more interested in them learning to use “thank you” in a generous manner.

Gratitude is a frequently underrated quality that should be developed from an early age and NOT fall off as we get older. It seems to return as we near the twilight hours of our life, but it seems that in the prime years we start to either be less grateful or just less expressive of our gratitude (which I hope is the case).

Gratitude is a very important trait to grow our perspective in a healthy way. Looking at life with gratitude will make you a better human being in general. I am not saying that you need to go buy a gratitude journal or something on Amazon. If you need that to help you to be more mindful, sure, anything that helps. If that would help you, I recommend grabbing a dollar store spiral notebook, decorate the cover however you please and just write the date and what you are grateful for in entry after entry. If you need the motivational quotes in a premade gratitude journal, make it part of your process to Google a quote and write it down when you add your things you are grateful for that day. If you don’t need to write it down, great, that is less time consuming for you then.

More importantly practice gratitude daily, every chance you get. Let the people you interact with know when you appreciate something they’ve done for you. Let the people you love, and who love you, know how much you appreciate things they do. If you focus on being grateful for the good things it is hard to get dragged down by negative things.

I believe that if you use the words “thank you” more, it will change your perspective but also impact your perspective of the world around you for the better.

Thank you for reading this!

Be better tomorrow because of what you do today!