A Green attitude is gratitude. When reading through all of your wonderful comments for the Eve Organics giveaway, I realized how vitally important an attitude it is. Most of you echoed the idea that gratitude is basically being happy with what we have, regardless of our circumstances. Gratitude fills me up with the present moment until I’m completely satisfied. Gratitude stops me wanting bigger and better every single day. In Short, gratitude makes me feel fantastic. It’s an attitude, however, that doesn’t always come naturally – I have to cultivate it everyday or I too easily slip into thinking that the glass is half-empty, instead of half-full. For many years now, I have developed the habit of writing a gratitude list whenever I’m feeling down. By the time I’ve got to my third or fourth list item, the corners of my mouth begin to turn up and by the time I get to the end of the list, I’m often ready to jump for joy. We tend to equate prosperity with how much money we have in the bank, and yet true prosperity is so much more – are your relationships prospering?, your children, your health, or your green way of live?
The one huge silver lining in the recent economic downturn is that we have had to get resourceful and self-sufficient. We’ve been forced to examine how we consume and throw-away and then start the whole cycle again. Many of us have had to learn to be live with less and the learning curve has bought us to a deeper level of satisfaction with the real and lasting things in life.
Gratitude is a beautiful attitude. When I see a girlfriend grinning from ear-to-ear because she’s just loving her life – it’s contagious because it’s so attractive.
The other day I took two little girls out for an ice-cream – one of them was full of absolute joy and gratitude and the prospect of such a treat, the other was totally non-plussed – I want to be like the latter because it makes the people around you smile.
Right now I am bursting with gratitude. I’m sitting here in the gorgeously green English countryside. I’m surrounded by fields, sheep, cows, chickens and screaming children. I ate potoatoes, green beans and spinach that my mom had pulled out of the dirt last night. I’m also grateful that so much has changed from the England that I left twelve years ago. Everyone is obsessed with composting, reusing, and downsizing their lives in whichever way they can. The credit crunch, as they call it here, has hit hard – but so too has the Nation’s need to find a thrill beyond getting more stuff.
I have copied the winning comment from last week’s giveaway below. Thanks Brianna for taking the trouble to share your story with us.
