Thanksgiving may be a day set aside once a year for being thankful and celebrating it with family and food, but I try to be thankful regularly by keeping a gratitude journal. This is a gratitude journal I received one year for Christmas from a girlfriend whose name is also Amy.
This is the “instructions” for recording my gratitudes she inscribed on the inside cover.
Here’s five gratitudes I’d written several years ago.
Although I don’t jot down my gratitudes daily, and some days on the ranch make it hard to feel thankful, I still think it’s important to keep negativity and ungratefulness in check and acknowledge what we do (and in some cases don’t) have. I try to be grateful for the little things as much as the big things.
Farms and ranches experience extremely lean years, abundant years, interspersed with circumstances beyond our control that can affect farming and ranching families’ livelihood. We learn to always appreciate what we have because we never know when that could change in a moment and be grateful no matter what our current situation is. Due to the nature of the cattle business (as well as the farming industry), people in agriculture are among the most grateful around the world.
This Thanksgiving I hope you celebrate your gratitudes for the very small things as much as the big things in your life. Be grateful also for the things you don’t have, as we all have things thankfully aren’t a part of our lives.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!
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