"Include All Things in Your Gratitude"

Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"All things"? "All things"? Well, I guess so, if you consider that trials make you stronger, that hardship builds character, and that adversity can bring us closer to God. Still, it's hard enough to be grateful for all our blessings. How can we be grateful for all our blessings and all our trials, too? Actually, being grateful for everything might be easier than only being grateful for good things.

I've heard it said that it's easier to do something 100% of the time than 98% of the time. Emerson advises us to "cultivate the habit of... [giving] thanks continually." With such a habit, it'd be easier to give thanks for our trials than not to. If we make a habit of seeing the good in everything and giving thanks for everything, we can become better at giving thanks for all our blessings, even the ones that are blessings in disguise.

Being thankful for everything requires a certain amount of faith and/or perspective, but it can be done. Let's try to develop a habit of gratitude that includes even our trials and troubles. They contribute to our advancement even more than our regular blessings do, and thus do even more to contribute to our ultimate happiness than the things that bring us happiness here and now. We should try to have enough faith in God to know that He can use all of our life experiences to bless us and make us happier. This Thanksgiving season, let's try to be thankful for all our blessings, even the ones that don't look like blessings to us.