Good morning, everybody. It is 7 a .m. and this
is Food for Thought, Thoughts If It Were You
by Neogentrics. The last topic I covered was contentment,
but I couldn't just leave it at that. After having
covered that topic, I figured I'd go ahead and
cover gratefulness, I'm sorry, gratitude and
thankfulness. And to put it simply, to even be
content, you first have to be grateful and thankful
for what you have. So first off, let's cover
the difference between the two of them, okay?
Thankfulness and gratitude are two words that,
you know, we often use to express the benefits
we receive in life, okay? However, most people
do not understand the difference between the
two. So what I'm going to do here is I'm going
to explain the difference between the two, all
right? First off, to put it simple, gratitude
means you are grateful and you can show it in
many ways, including reciprocating help, you
know, like cooking a dinner, helping someone
without expecting a return of favor or buy someone
a meal by helping strangers. OK, gratitude can
be a way of life for some people. I'm one of
those people. On the other hand, thankfulness
often means nothing more than saying the words
thank you. Okay, saying thank you is a good act.
However, this action often happens after the
person receives the benefits and it's more like
an automatic response. Or at least it should
be for most people. They just take it and then
walk on their merry way without saying a damn
thing. Okay, like I said, we're going to cover
the difference between the two of these. And
I'm going to be as clear as I can. So first off.
We're going to take a short break. Give me a
second to think. And then we're going to cover
what each one is first. All right, everybody.
Welcome back. Let's go ahead and cover what thankfulness
is. Merriam -Webster's Dictionary, however, defines
it as... Conscious of benefits received. It is
a conscious act from a person who receives the
benefits. I couldn't ask for a better description
of the definition of the word thankfulness than
that. It can be an automatic response most of
the time, just like a habit. You automatically
say thank you to the people who have helped you
when you needed it. For example, you express
your appreciation for someone who opens the door
for you by saying the words, thank you. And often,
this is to show your appreciation for the person's
act. Usually, thankfulness happens in an instant.
You say thank you right after someone helps you
with something. It's more like a polite behavior
to show that you express your appreciation. thankful
rather than grateful the act of thankfulness
usually lasts for only a short moment you'll
never remember the guy who opened the door for
you ten years ago it is easy to express thankfulness
you can go out to your local shopping mall and
say something nice or say thank you to the sales
girl for her time and explaining the service
or product but honestly You won't even remember
that person as soon as you leave there a week
or two from now. Thankfulness is a social norm
applicable in general situations, while gratitude
is the special magnification of spirituality,
love, and affection. Grateful is a feeling while
thankful is an act. When someone does something
good for you, or to you for that matter, you
feel grateful for him. and you offer your thanks
to him as an action. Thankfulness often happens
at the surface. Whenever you express your thanks
to someone, it will be merely just an act of
expressing your appreciation toward him or her,
nothing else, nothing more, nothing less. Thankfulness
is often associated with either words or gestures.
of appreciation usually it happens as a reaction
from someone's action it can never occur at random
moments when you are idly idling or just taking
a shower in the bathroom honestly i don't know
anyone who would um and if you're being thankful
while taking a shower uh to somebody else that's
great but as long as you're not talking to them
While you're in the shower, it's not gonna be
awkward. I assure you Okay, next we're gonna
talk about what gratitude is Next what is gratitude?
Merriam Webster's dictionary defines thankful
Gratitudeness or being grateful as appreciative
of benefits received It is a way of expressing
appreciation with or without an act. Gratitude
is more like having a sense of thankfulness and
the feeling is from within. You feel grateful
not only for the people you appreciate, but also
things that you feel has been of great help to
you in your life. For example, you can express
your gratitude towards your car because it has
been with you for more than a decade. you know,
has been through many ups and downs with you.
At the same time, you can express your gratefulness
towards other people as well. Just like you can
feel grateful for your mother who has constantly
guided, supported you and gave you valuable advice
from time to time. Or at least I would hope you
do. Talking to the guys out there. Grateful is
a sense of feeling that happens. at a deeper
level that comes from within your heart. The
act of gratefulness is memorable and can live
for a long time. When you feel grateful towards
someone, you can feel the sense of appreciation
to that person even after many, many years later,
even if you haven't seen them for a while. Gratitude
is the sense of being and can be a way of life
for some people. It's the manifestation of love,
commitment, and devotion towards those who are
meaningful to you. It encompasses, there's a
word, shared experiences, love, and understanding
that the universe has conspired to connect us
together. For instance, thankfulness is often
the first step. It can grow deeper and become
gratefulness. Gratefulness starts from the mind.
You have to believe that people and things are
helping and doing good to you to feel appreciated.
When you feel grateful for something, You can
express your feeling without even using words
or any physical sign. It could be just from within.
You know, people can usually tell if you're being
grateful or not by your actions without you having
to say a word. Like your grandma making you a
nice sweater. Your sign of being grateful is
the fact that you even wear the sweater even
if it's ugly as hell. You don't have to say anything
to her. Just her seeing you wear it. lets her
know that you're grateful. Being grateful can
grow beyond the act of thankfulness. You are
willing to sacrifice and do something special
even without someone requiring you to do it.
The feeling is usually stemmed from the willingness
from within you. Gratefulness can come at a random
moment, out of sudden. You can feel your own
financial blessings and pay for a stranger's
meal. Just because you were blessed doesn't mean
you can't bless other people. It doesn't matter
if they give you anything back. Or maybe it suddenly
hits you to remind your loved ones how important
they are to you. Thank your mom and dad for being
there even in the tough times. Even if they weren't
able to help you too much, at least they still
stood there with you. I've known people who have
parents that yelled at them all the time when
they were younger. but you know what they never
left him they stayed with him no matter what
they still yell at him even now in the future
but they'll stand with them and if something
should go wrong they're the first people he would
call because they would be the first ones there
granted they would probably still chew him out
for whatever the reason was but they would help
him because they're parents and they care Let's
go ahead and finish this topic off on gratefulness
and thankfulness. Let's finish off by talking
about how to be that. The way to live an enriching
and fulfilling life is to live with gratefulness.
The key is to keep gratitude at the forefront
of your life. When you focus your mind on how
privileged you are, it makes it easy for you
to want to bless and help other people. And express
your deep sense of appreciation towards other
things. Being thankful is great and being grateful
is even better. You want to live a life with
feeling. That you are always blessed with the
people and things around you. And you can only
achieve this state of being through being grateful.
One powerful way to bring the sense of gratefulness
into your life is by writing your gratitude list.
Each morning, before you get to work or go to
school or what have you, write down a list of
things that you feel ungrateful for. It can be
your car, your spouse, your girlfriend, your
mom, your dad, your brother, your cousin, your
computer, your house, your dog, your kitchen,
or even the food on the table or the money in
your bank account. It doesn't matter. You know,
the list goes on. Though I feel like I've named
a pretty good sum of everything right there.
Just make a list of things that you want to be
grateful for and actually feel the emotion. You
know, feel the gratefulness within you and express
it through your writing. This will train you
to become a grateful person who is always blessed
with gratefulness and opportunity. You know,
I'm grateful for my parents being there with
me when I was younger because I could have been
dead. The car accident that happened years ago
back when I was two years old, I had nothing
to do with it. I was just a bystander in the
whole incident whatsoever. I should have been
dead. But because I had a praying set of parents,
parents who believed in our Father in Heaven,
they wouldn't give up on me. And then on top
of that, despite everything that happened and,
you know, me recovering, but then finding a tumor
in my brain and having to remove it. You know,
everything I learned up until the age of three
was gone. And I lost use of my left hand almost
completely. Had they not been there to help train
me back up from the ground up at the age of three,
and standing by with me even after the school
system didn't want to teach me, trying to label
me as special needs, I wouldn't be here talking
to you even doing this recording. So, without
me even telling my parents, but them knowing
that I'm still in school and I'm willing to move
forward to the best of my ability to help them
out, they know that I'm grateful. I don't have
to tell them. But I'm here to tell you that I'm
grateful for them. Because had I not been, I
wouldn't be able to even do this podcast. So
with that, I thank you for listening to this.
Or any of my other podcasts, for that matter.
And I pray that you continue to listen and help
support me as I go on through these ventures.
Again, this has been Thoughts for You. Food for
Thought, Neogentrix is the author. That would
be me. This is the Moral Series, and the topic
of today was gratefulness and thankfulness. Enjoy
the rest of your day.