by Gregg Krech Imagine spending several days in quiet reflection, facing a wall, and making a list of all the specific things your mother did for you as a child -- thinking about the lunches she made for you to...

by Kate Manahan Do you ever have to interrupt what you are focused on to go pick your kids up at school? Do you ever put dinner together for the family because you should, not because you are inspired to...

by Rev. Denise Mosher The supreme happiness of life is the conviction of being loved for yourself, or more correctly, being loved in spite of yourself. ~Victor Hugo~ The goal of marriage preparation within the Christian tradition is to help...

Many of us desire to live a more purposeful life. We want to use our time well, to put our energy towards that which truly matters, to leave behind a positive legacy. But when we step back and take...

Just over four years ago, I participated in a weeklong Naikan retreat in Japan. There, I had a unique opportunity to review my entire life with a new perspective. "What have others given me? What have I given others? What troubles have I caused others?" With these three simple questions, for about 15 hours a day, I examined in painful detail the immeasurable support that surrounded me from the day I entered the world screaming to that week of sitting quietly behind a shoji screen. It did not take very long for me to realize...

I compared notes with one of my friends who expects everything of the universe and is disappointed when anything is less than the best, and I found that I begin at the other extreme, expecting nothing, and am always full of thanks for moderate goods.

Where is it written the Average Jane can't benefit from the services of a personal shopper? Why are these helpful individuals inevitably seen as the sole property of persons like Roma, Christie, and Demi? At the financial low point of my life, a time when I was recently divorced and had to divide monthly bills into three piles: must pay, might pay, can't pay, I too, acquired a personal shopper. That's true. Just like the media glitterati, I had someone who shopped and inevitably purchased clothes that were the perfect fit and the perfect color.

An excerpt from a public radio interview with author Gregg Krech about attention , obstacles and the experience of gratitude. Approximately 2 1/2 minutes....

An audio excerpt from GK Chesterton (1874-1936) exempliifying the essential gratitude he has for life itself. Chesterton was a prolific writer but is known for the childlike delight he took in whatever he encountered. On one occasion he wrote to...

So what does gratitude have to do with any of this??? First, the hurricane stripped the veil of the ordinary from my eyes. Electricity is miraculous not ordinary. Without it, the sirloin rots, the mattress mildews, the milk curdles. Gasoline is not ordinary either. Without it, the Honda becomes an aluminum shed and the groceries must be walked home in a pull cart, a trip that turns Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia into soup.

Robert Emmons, professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, is one of the foremost authorities on the topic of gratitude in North America. He is the author of more than sixty research articles and two books, Words of Gratitude: For Mind, Body & Soul (Templeton Foundation Press 2001 - co-authored with Joanna Hill) and, The Psychology of Gratitude (Oxford University Press, 2004). He has been studying what makes people happy for nearly twenty years and in this interview, conducted by Thirty Th ousand Days Ass't Editor Trudy Boyle, Emmons reveals some of his conclusions about the practice and importance of cultivating gratitude.

Naikan is a method of self-reflection developed in Japan by Yoshimoto Ishin. Its structure uses our relationships with other as the mirror in which we can see ourselves. We reflect on what we have received from others, what we have given, and what troubles we have caused. Genuine self-reflection affects so many aspects of our life—the presence of gratitude, our relationships with our loved ones, the degree of judgment we place on other's faults, our mental health, lifestyle choices, investment decisions, even our faith in a supreme being or force.

My Naikan reflection on this accident has allowed me to see, in detail, all the thoughtful acts that were done on my behalf by others -- many efforts by my family and people I had never even spoken with. At a time when I was wounded, weak and unable to care for myself, they were there for me, watching over me, offering their love and support to help me get well. It renews my faith in the world that we are intrinsically good, and it awakens my deep gratitude. I am more clearly aware now of my obligation to do for others.

You must learn to understand the secret of gratitude. It is more than just so-called virtue. It is revealed to you as a mysterious law of existence. In obedience to it we have to fulfill our destiny. -Albert Schweitzer

I benefit (quite often, I might add) when others/things are simply doing their job. When I experience this and respond with thanks, my world changes. Try it. Go through one whole day, saying "thank you" to everything and everyone who does something that serves you in any way.

Forgotten acts of kindness from others often surface as we reflect upon our relationships. I found this to be particularly true when I did Naikan on my dad. One of the things I remembered while reflecting on my dad involved sports.

[T]o cultivate gratitude, we need to develop a new habit of attention.... Through self-reflection, we can come to see everything we have, and are, as gifts. And through self-reflection we begin to train our attention to notice what we haven't noticed.