Motivation Mondays: Gratitude & Optimism

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” Cicero

Motivation Mondays: Gratitude & Optimism

Optimism is a choice
Optimism is a lifestyle decision to live joyfully
Optimism is like a seed we plant that bears fruit
Optimism is about immersing ourselves in our work/craft
Optimism is about celebrating the little things
Optimism is about not sweating the small stuff
Optimism is a smile in the face of oppression – Gifts of the Day ~ EOF

Welcome June: As we leave May behind, two words come to mind: Gratitude and Optimism.
Gratitude for the company of family, friends, and well-wishers as we gather to eat, run, rejoice, volunteer, and support those in need globally.
Gratitude for my sister’s recent graduation from Harvard, the graduations of other friends/families, celebrations, renewals, and remembrances.
Gratitude to Abbott Pharmaceuticals/Abbottglobal and TeamAbbott for being my marathon-running sponsor and for sponsoring a community of runners who inspire others by showcasing how they’ve overcome health challenges and made an impact in their communities.
Gratitude for the gift of life, breath, health, love, basic needs, all things that make life joyful, and even for those that teach us painful lessons, and, above all,
Gratitude for God’s abundant grace and blessings.

How Often Do You Express GRATITUDE? It’s easy to be grateful when things are going well, but what do we do when we feel stressed out or trapped by life’s demands? What do we do when we suddenly find ourselves at a loss to say what we think or even how we feel about events around us? And what about when we’ve tried to handle a situation, and it persists, and we try another approach, and it lingers? At some point, we have to surrender our need for all our pegs to fit nicely into their square holes. We have to stop, catch our breath, and change directions, albeit for a short while.

What are you grateful for? What are you optimistic about? When we face life’s obstacles with grace and surrender, we see that life is about changes, hills and valleys, and lessons that help us grow. Real life is messy; it is not linear. We experience good, bad, and everything in between, and our attitude makes the difference. If we become bitter, our pain lingers. If we become grateful, our pain dissipates over time, and we gain the wisdom that comes from surrendering to our need to control everything. The Dalai Lama once said that “When you think everything is someone else’s fault, you will suffer a lot. When you realize that everything springs only from yourself, you will learn both peace and joy.”

An Æsop Story: The Town Mouse & the Country Mouse
A Town Mouse once visited a relative who lived in the country. For lunch the Country Mouse served wheat stalks, roots, and acorns, with a dash of cold water for drink. The Town Mouse ate very sparingly, nibbling a little of this and a little of that, and by her manner making it very plain that she ate the simple food only to be polite.

After the meal the friends had a long talk, or rather the Town Mouse talked about her life in the city while the Country Mouse listened. They then went to bed in a cozy nest in the hedgerow and slept in quiet and comfort until morning. In her sleep, the Country Mouse dreamed she was a Town Mouse, with all the luxuries and delights of city life that her friend had described to her. So the next day when the Town Mouse asked the Country Mouse to go home with her to the city, she gladly said yes.

When they reached the mansion in which the Town Mouse lived, they found on the table in the dining room the leavings of a very fine banquet. There were sweetmeats and jellies, pastries, delicious cheeses, indeed, the most tempting foods that a Mouse can imagine. But just as the Country Mouse was about to nibble a dainty bit of pastry, she heard a Cat mew loudly and scratch at the door. In great fear, the Mice scurried to a hiding place, where they lay quite still for a long time, hardly daring to breathe. When at last they ventured back to the feast, the door opened suddenly and in came the servants to clear the table, followed by the House Dog.
The Country Mouse stopped in the Town Mouse’s den only long enough to pick up her carpet bag and umbrella.

“You may have luxuries and dainties that I have not,” she said as she hurried away, “but I prefer my plain food and simple life in the country with the peace and security that go with it.”
Moral: Poverty with security is better than plenty in the midst of fear and uncertainty. Via read.gov

🌟GRATITUDE by Melody Beattie
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.

June by John Updike
The sun is rich
And gladly pays
In golden hours,
Silver days,

And long green weeks
That never end.
School’s out. The time
Is ours to spend.

There’s Little League,
Hopscotch, the creek,
And, after supper,
Hide-and-seek.

The live-long light
Is like a dream,
And freckles come
Like flies to cream.

More Below!

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” Helen Keller

Motivation Mondays: Gratitude & Optimism

Optimism is choosing to laugh every day
Optimism is the ability to laugh at our own foibles
Optimism is about setting goals bit realistic and fantastic ones
Optimism is knowing the difference between letting go and quitting
Optimism is about being and doing the best we can and letting go of the falls
Optimism is about leaving the past in the past
Optimism is about letting go of grudges and petty stuff – Gifts of the Day ~ EOF

Optimism for our global community that our leaders will seek peace as an imperative choice.
Optimism for the eradication of isms that create chasms and chaos in our world.
Optimism for the research on life-saving treatments of diseases, resolutions to food insecurity, poverty, and war.
Optimism for better and equitable healthcare, education, and quality of life for all in our collective future.
Optimism for the future of our planet, our climate, and all life forms that inhabit this earth. That we learn to share, protect, and honor Mother Earth.

Are you Optimistic about your future? The happy future we seek begins now, at this present moment. If we create a space for joy, we will see it evolve into more joy and vice versa. To be optimistic is to believe that the future will be better and to plan for it. If you spend your days focused on gloom and doom, how could you see the forest for the trees? How could you lift the veil of darkness? Often, in hindsight, we look back at situations that seemed so monumental and realize they were only that way because of our perception of a situation we could have tweaked, changed, abandoned, or left alone.

Again, what are you grateful for? What are you optimistic about? We don’t always have to jump to conclusions when people act/behave a certain way. We can take the time to consider why, ask questions, and then make peace with it. As complex beings, we vacillate between compassion and cruelty, and back again. Some of us make a laundry list of slights and actions against others to justify our decisions, and then forget to address the much-needed conversation necessary to resolve conflict. Why? Because we are stuck in an old story about some nonsensical slight.

A Story: The Wall That Optimism Built ~ Osho
There was an ancient, mysterious wall that stood at the edge of a village, and whenever anyone climbed it to look over the other side, instead of coming back, he or she would smile and jump over, never to return. The inhabitants of the village became curious as to what could draw these people to the other side of the wall. After all, their village had all the necessities of living a comfortable life.
They made an arrangement to tie a person’s feet so that when he or she looked over and wished to jump, they could be pulled back. The next time someone tried to climb the wall to see what was on the other side, they chained her feet so that she could not go over. She looked to the other side, was delighted by what she saw, and smiled.
Those standing below grew curious and wanted to question her, and pulled her back, but to their great disappointment, she had lost the power of speech.
“Those who have seen cannot say. That which has been seen cannot be painted, cannot be reduced to words. But still each one has to give a try – and the world goes on becoming more and more beautiful because of these efforts.” Zen Stories via unknown

🌟OPTIMISM by Jane Hirshfield
More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam
returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous
tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,
it turns in another. A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers, mitochondria, figs — all this resinous, unretractable earth.

WHEN I AM AMONG THE TREES by Mary Oliver
When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

“With gratitude, optimism is sustainable.” Michael J. Fox

Motivation Mondays: Gratitude & Optimism

Optimism is about choosing to eat right and get healthy
Optimism is about committing to exercise for the sake of our wellness
Optimism is understanding that bad things happen to good people and they get up and keep going
Optimism is about setting boundaries and letting go of toxic relationships
Optimism is about letting go of excuses and protecting our space and out loved ones
Optimism is about seeing ourselves as victors not victims
Optimism is the happy twin of Hope and nothing else matters. – Gifts of the Day ~ EOF

How do Optimism and Gratitude Intertwine? Some time ago, one of my kids dropped her wallet after attending a book fair in Brooklyn. She was quite distraught, had no way to get home, and all of us were very concerned about it. Initially, she thought it was taken on the subway, as people jostled each other and the opportunity arose. But that was not the case. As I drove into the city to get her, we got the good news that a good Samaritan had found the wallet on the street and gone to great lengths to reach out and inform us. When I picked her up, she shared that while she was waiting to get picked up, she visualized a good person picking up her wallet and returning it to the fair organizers. She willed herself to believe that her purse would be found. Yes, we can all do this. It is called the power of the postive thought. If nothing else, it can help shift our thinking during challenging times.

What are you grateful for? What are you optimistic about? The whole family was very grateful, and a great feeling of joy settled in our hearts. That evening, my kid told me she had missed one of the events she wanted to attend at the fair because an elderly man attending the fair had lost his way when they got off the subway that morning. She stopped to guide him and another elderly lady to the fair. They all walked very slowly until they got there, and even though my kid is a very fast walker, the universe was reminding her to slow down that day and be grateful for what is… Gratitude is an active gift that we give and receive every day. Optimism is its happy twin. As Nicholas M. Butler aptly said, “Optimism is essential to achievement, and it is also the foundation of courage and true progress.”

A Story: The Man and The Mountain
One day, a man beheld through the opening of a cloud, the calm face of the mountain. He stopped every passer-by, that would stay to give an answer, and inquired of the way that would lead him beyond the mists. Some said take this path, and others said take that path. After many days of confusion and toil, he arrived among the hills. A man, full in years, wise in the ways of the hills, said, “I know the way. You cannot reach the mountain, O friend, unless you are strengthened by the power that comes from the adoration of the image in yonder shrine.”
Many days passed in peaceful worship. Tired of worship, he asked of men that seemed great with understanding. “Yea,” said one, “I know the way. But if you would gain the fulfillment of your desire, carry this on you. It will uphold you in your weariness.” He gave him the symbol of his struggle. Another cried, “Yea, I know the way. But many days of contemplation must be passed in the seclusion of a sanctuary, with my picture of eternity.” “I know the way,” said another, “But you must perform these rites, understand these hidden laws, you must enter the association of the elect and hold fast to the knowledge that we shall give you.” “Be loud in the song of praise of the reflection that you seek,” said another. “Come, follow me, obeying all things I say. I know the way,” cried another. Eventually, the calm face of the mountain was utterly forgotten. Now he wanders from hill to hill, crying aloud, “Yes, I know the way, but…”
There is a mountain, far beyond the plains and hills, whose great summit overlooks the dark valley and the open seas. Neither cloud nor deep mists ever hide its calm face. It is above the shadows of day and night. From the vast plain, no man can behold it. Some have seen it but there be few that have reached its feet. One in many thousand years gathers his strength and gains that abode of eternity.
I speak of that mountain top, serene, infinite, beyond thought. I shout for joy! J. Krishnamurti via

A Story: The Optimistic Farmer
A farmer whose corn always took the first prize at the state fair had a habit of sharing his best corn seed with all the farmers in the neighborhood. When asked why, he said, “It is really a matter of self-interest. The wind picks up the pollen and carries it from field to field. So if my neighbors grow inferior corn, the cross-pollination brings down the quality of my own corn. That is why I am concerned that they plant only the very best.” Zen Stories

Positive Motivation Tip: “Optimism doesn’t mean that you are blind to the reality of the situation. It means that you remain motivated to seek a solution to whatever problems arise.” The Dalai Lama

PHOTO CREDITS/ATTRIBUTIONS: All Photos: June from my Personal Photos, via Pixabay, AND/OR via Wikipedia…

Until Next Time…
Ask. Believe. Receive. ©
Elizabeth Obih-Frank
Mirth and Motivation
Positive Kismet