Gratitude & Opportunity

Volume 5: March 2008 Comments (0)

by Junior Leadership Class – Advisor: D. Kimble

In a world and time when there is little dialogue about being grateful, it
seems to me that gratitude is not something that students consider as
being important. Most people take so much for granted that gratitude
seems like something from the past something that we may sometimes
consider but never mention or have a conversation about. I t occurred
to me that there might be a valuable conversation in connecting
gratitude to opportunity.

What do I mean by that?

If we can understand the importance of being grateful for what we have
we may also understand that if we value the gifts that we have when
another gift or possibility comes our way we may be able to value or
take advantage of opportunities every day. As students you are in a
position to take advantage of teachers that are here to help you
understand the opportunities that lie before you, such as taking
advantage of the opportunity to go to college, bring up your GPA, get
help with homework, pass the CAHSEE. Sometimes you have to learn
to recognize opportunities before you can take advantage of them,
that’s why talking about gratitude, may be helpful or inspiring or enable
you to see a different point of view.
Some examples of taking advantage of opportunities every day could
be, you have the chance to do better every day for yourself and your
parents .Do better how? By trying to have a more positive attitude and
understanding that you always have a new day to change the way you
think and improve your situation maybe just by being kind to someone,
maybe just helping someone in some small way, maybe by trying to
look at a situation in a different way, for example you may be
struggling with a situation or a person that you feel is hard to deal with,
try and look at all sides of the situation If the situation seems so
hopeless think about one moment in your life when you were happy or
were having fun or with someone that made you feel great or
special and thinking about that memory will make you feel better
almost immediately. If you are struggling with a person, think
about how long out of every day that you have to interact with
that person, it may be just a few minutes, should you spend most
of energy for hours or days having negative thoughts and
feelings about someone who is only occupying a few minutes of
your time each day?
Try and think of the truth of a situation by that I mean that if you
are having a difficult time dealing or relating to someone try and
examine why. It is not enough to say you don’t like that person
or they don’t like you, that’s just an excuse to not look at the
truth, does that person remind you of someone else who you had
a bad interaction with or does that person say things that you
don’t agree with or you don’t want to hear. By trying to find the
truth you will understand yourself and others better, you can
view things from a different perspective. Why is that important,
for a few reasons, no one is all knowing or all seeing, often we
see things from our own subjective viewpoint, from the way we
may feel or from being biased from past experiences, trying to be
objective or “finding the truth” is a way of finding balance in our
lives, it broadens your horizons and opens up other possibilities
to you. None of us live alone we need and interact with others
every day, the sooner you start looking at another point of view
the easier it will be to communicate and interact with individuals
who you will have to interact with, go to school with, learn
from , work with , socialize with and form lasting important
relationships with. This is not stuff to do or think about in the
future it is important now and the sooner you start practicing the
sooner you can realize your potential as an individual. It is not
good enough to think that you are a great person, or that you
have too many problems, try and understand what is specifically
great about you, what are your strengths and weaknesses, utilize
your strengths and change your weakness into something
positive. If your problems seem insurmountable try and analyze
exactly what they are, where did they come from. Sometimes we
worry about things that we have no control over, sometimes we
don’t understand that we did not cause certain situations but that
we still have to deal with them, knowing that you did not cause a
problem can often change the way we respond to that problem,
look in the mirror, if you did cause a problem own up to it, and
try and figure out how and why you may have made a mistake
and try and do better next time. Be kind to yourself, forgive
yourself and others …….. that will take away a considerable
burden that you may have been carrying around with you…..find
a different way to look at the world,
your world ………
make a difference in your own life.

admin @ April 22, 2008