The greatest gift we can bring to any relationship wherever we go is being who we are. - Melody Beattie

Few situations — no matter how greatly they appear to demand it — can be bettered by us going berserk. Why do we do it, then? We react because we’re anxious and afraid of what has happened, what might happen, and what is happening. Many of us react as though everything is a crisis because we have lived with so many crises for so long that crisis reaction has become a habit. We react because we think things shouldn’t be happening the way they are. We react because we don’t feel good about ourselves. We react because most people react. We react because we think we have to react. We don’t have to. We don’t have to be so afraid of people. They are just people like us. We don’t have to forfeit our peace. It doesn’t help. We have the same facts and resources available to us when we’re peaceful that are available to us when we’re frantic and chaotic. Actually we have more resources available because our minds and emotions are free to perform at peak level.

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.

We work it out, or live it out.