Counting Your Blessings?

Feeling a bit down and depressed? I have a few solutions: I can watch my Talladega Nights DVD – shake ‘n bake! Or I can get real busy. Or I can spend some time in a beautiful forest – I live in Vancouver, so we have lots of them around us. But what works best for me is to simply count my blessings.

We spend a lot of time focused on what we don’t have, what we don’t want, and what we don’t like. That’s a surefire route to visit the kennel of the Black Dog of depression, the slough of despond, or the local gun shop. Instead, we should focus on what’s great about our lives (have you noticed you’re not blind?), what we have to be grateful for, and all the things that worked out right for us. Consider all the great people in your life that put up with your misery and whining, the fact that you have a full stomach (OK - in some cases, too full, fatty!), and that you’re reading a Blog article instead of laboring in some salt mine, even though you may well deserve the latter...

Seriously, it’s just a case of switching from half empty to half-full, from the black cloud to the silver lining, and from the “I’m getting so old” to “Today is the youngest I’ll ever be in my life again!” Instead of the pathetic response to “How ya doin’?” of “NOT TOO BAD”, how about “I’m happy, healthy and successful”? Instead of watching Wolf Blitzer, why not watch Dave Chappelle? Not too hard. I’d rather be watching Talladega Nights than CNN any day of the week. I seldom get a chuckle out of watching the stooges of Collectivism. Unless it’s Glenn Beck, of course – at least he has brains and guts. But I digress. Choose what you feed your brain.

My biggest blessing is the wonderful people in my life. One can’t be depressed when spending time with my amazing family, or the incredibly positive DollarMakers Team. When I stagger out of a Starbucks on a high after meeting with one of my JV partners, it’s not the caffeine. SO: get out a piece of paper, make a list of twenty things, circumstances, and people that you’re grateful for, and feel good.

“When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.”
~ Johnson Oatman Jnr.

Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com