<\/a><\/p>\nSomething I am discovering about myself every day: there is always time to learn how to embrace gratitude.<\/h3>\n
I feel that I make a conscious effort to \u201cthink before I speak,\u201d but being human doesn’t always mean we default to a place of kind consideration. There is a genuine art to gratitude, and it\u2019s a behavior that we have to cultivate and express often to see the positive results. Anything worthwhile deserves some mindful practice, and being gracious is no exception!<\/p>\n
Gratitude is really just being gracious. The dictionary defines gracious as; “being pleasantly kind, benevolent and courteous.<\/em>” So, what does that mean exactly?<\/p>\nIn our age of immediate gratification, bombarded stimuli and sensory overload, how do we act with \u201cpleasant kindness,\u201d and what is \u201cbenevolent\u201d anyway? The act and art of gratitude is all about how you make the people around you feel.<\/strong><\/p>\nWhat if you were attending a get together at a new co-worker\u2019s house and you were not introduced to anyone? What if you were left to fend for yourself feeling ignored or left out? This would not be a gracious moment on your friend\u2019s part. Whether intentional or not, when you find yourself in the company of people who are not behaving graciously, it feels funky, out of sorts and leaves you with a sense of being discounted and not valued or appreciated. Find this happening repeatedly with the same individual, and you may opt to no longer associate with that person.<\/p>\n
Gratitude\u00a0can be very profound as the one extending the gracious gesture and as someone receiving it from you. The same is true that should you choose not to extend gratitude to another person, they in turn may find you someone they’d rather not continue to engage with. Suddenly the calls stop, invitations cease and you wonder what happened. It could be you neglected to be gracious when the opportunity was right there in front of you.<\/p>\n