Grateful in Any Circumstance

Yesterday at church there was a great lesson about gratitude.

I like talking about gratitude because I have a lot of things to be thankful for. This makes it easy to be grateful.

For example, air conditioning is awesome. I also like cars. And planes. And having a job. I've got an amazing family. My bed is very comfortable. I haven't seen a scorpion in a day.

See? Lots of things to be thankful for.

Anyway, on Sunday the lesson came from this talk by Dieter F. Uchtdorf. He said,

"Perhaps focusing on what we are grateful for is the wrong approach. It is difficult to develop a spirit of gratitude if our thankfulness is only proportional to the number of blessings we can count. ... It is easy to be grateful for things when life seems to be going our way. But what then of those times when what we wish for seems to be far out of reach?

Could I suggest that we see gratitude as a disposition, a way of life that stands independent of our current situation? In other words, I'm suggesting that instead of being thankful for things, we focus on being thankful in our circumstances - whatever they may be."

Later he goes on to say that being grateful doesn't mean we are pleased with our circumstances. Instead, it allows us to look past our current challenges.

I loved this lesson. Yes! Let's all go be grateful in our circumstances because they are awesome right now! That's what I was thinking.

Then I woke up this morning.

Recently (and by recently, I mean today) I decided to start going back to the gym. I've also decided to start drinking smoothies for breakfast (as of today). On my way to the gym, my smoothie managed to spill itself all over my passenger seat floor (no, it wasn't my fault). 

I also broke my new goggles at the gym this morning.

Then, the drain in the shower decided it no longer wanted to be a drain.

By the time I got back to my car, the smoothie situation had not gotten any better (and by that I mean the smoothie had not magically cleaned itself up.)

It was a rough morning.

Well, it should have been a rough morning. Instead, I found the entire thing very entertaining. It seemed silly to get mad at such little things. Crying also seemed like an inappropriate response, which is why I laughed. Besides, nothing I had to deal with today is going to have a lasting, negative impact on my life. (Well, probably. I guess it depends on how long it takes me to get my car washed.)

In fact, no matter what our circumstances are, we can always have a spirit of gratitude. I realize that other people have to deal with things much more complicated than a smoothie-infused mat. Laughing about it may not always be the right answer, but getting angry usually doesn't fix problems either.

If you can't do what you want, do what you can.

That's the quote that's on the school for problem children down the road from me. I love it. It's my new life motto.

There you go. A lesson on gratitude and it's not even November.

Oh, and by the way, I had an excellent rest of the day. Thank you for asking!