If you want to feel happy, ignore all the benefits of gratitude

Gratitude has been linked to greater positive emotions, lower stress and better relationships. So rush in and start saying thank you more often… Well, we would not recommend doing this just because of the expected benefits of expressing gratitude.

Do it just because you are actually thankful and grateful for the things that happen to you, the specific, small or big actions or behavior or situations you find yourself in. Are you grateful to be able to listen to the music you love, to discover innumerable books and movies? We have been numbed by a continuous barrage of things vying for our attention that we forgot that we have quite a lot of choice in how we can spend the next ten minutes. We could spend the next two minutes thinking of the things that we are thankful for — we have food to eat, clean air to breathe, potable water. These may sound like things we should not care about and in a sense this is true, many of us have always had the benefit of those things. But if you happen to have been born in a particular area of a particular country, these necessities are not available to us. To be clear, we are not telling anyone to ignore the problems we all have in life (we all have ups and downs — career, relationships, health, loss), but simply to recognize our luck sometimes!

So if you are thankful, then express your gratitude to yourself and the world around you! We would implore you (beg you) not to feel thankful just because you think this will make you feel more positive emotions, lower your stress and better your relationships.

Originally published at GoodRipple.