What is gratitude? Oxford languages describes gratitude as, “The quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.”

If people around the world just took a few minutes out of their days to consciously express thankfulness and appreciation towards their blessings, so many more people would live with more happiness and joy.

There’s plenty of things that we should express gratitude towards, but we simply don’t. Either because we’re not conscious enough to take the time and effort to express gratitude towards them or we overlook them since we’re accustomed to them.

I know in many situations using comparison leaves us feeling inadequate or insecure in our own abilities. However, people who seem to think they have nothing to be grateful for need to use comparison as a tool to gain a deeper perspective over their own life. Use comparison to see what many people struggle with, what many people don’t have and use that as motivation to be grateful in your own life of the things you may overlook.

There are roughly 43 million people who don’t have access to their vision.

There are more than 70 million people who don’t have the ability to hear.

1 billion people live on less than $2 a day

3 billion people live on $2 to $8 a day

2 billion people live on $8 to $32 per day

Around 9 million people die every year of hunger and hunger-related diseases.

There are people around the world that don’t have access to clean drinking water, shoes, clothes or even a house.

Especially in the western world each and every single human has something to be grateful for, If you can’t find what it is you need to dig deeper and expand your viewpoint to see how some people live life.

The two ways that I like to do it is first every morning I get up and I write out three things that I’m grateful for. For today I wrote I am grateful to have a bed to sleep in, clean water to drink and a blanket to keep me warm. Or throughout my day I’ll express appreciation to certain things such as having a car to drive, breathing through my nose, having food to eat or having a roof over my head. When I write out what I’m grateful for and when I express appreciation throughout my day it puts me in a happier mood and it shows me how blessed I truly am. Everybody has something to be grateful for and when you express gratitude it will make your life more enjoyable.

When you show appreciation is makes you remember how fortunate you truly are. There’s times where my fiancé and I are watching a show together and I look over and I just think to myself how I am so lucky to have a person in my life who I can spend time with watching our favourite shows together and instantly it makes me smile.

One of the best things you can do to increase your happiness is being grateful for what you have.