The Perfect Score: Thanksgiving - 1, Gratitude - 364

Why do we only have one day a year set aside for giving thanks? I used to ask that question and often said that every day should be Thanksgiving. But I've changed my mind. I think one Thanksgiving Day is enough. What we need more of are Gratitude Days.

Thanks and Gratitude are related but they're not the same. Thanks is the daughter of Gratitude, and the granddaughter of Awareness. Along with her sister, Humility, Thanks is the natural descendant of the true gran dames of a rich, joyous life.

When we say "thank you" for something, we are acknowledging a gift, a blessing, a current state. It's a nod to the universe that says, "Yep...I got it...and I know it's good." Giving thanks is a good thing - the right thing - to do, but the real power comes from gratitude.

Gratitude is a state of being, the result of awareness, and is the doorway through which the gifts and blessings we are so thankful for enter into our lives. To be grateful is to be open, to choose an arms-flung-wide-in-wonder way of walking through the world, open to experience, to receiving all there is to feel and do and know.

A beautiful website, Gratefullness.org, refers to gratefullness as, "...the simple response of our heart to this life in all its fullness," and adds, "The practice of gratefulness moves us in four directions: It restores courage, inspires generosity, reconciles relationships, and has the potential to heal our Earth." (Please visit Brother David's website and learn more about what Gratefullness.org is doing to move the world in those four directions.)

Gratitude starts with awareness...not filtered awareness of "the good things in our lives," but full awareness, without judgment, of All There Is and our place among that All. When we practice conscious awareness, we see the world differently. As Dr. Wayne Dyer says, "When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." When we choose to be aware of All, All opens up to us, and we are the recipients of more gifts than we could possibly imagine. Grateful eyes see beauty everywhere.

I think the score is perfect. One day set aside to practice thanksgiving is enough...as long as we spend the other 364 days each year practicing gratefullness. In the words of Dag Hammerskjold, "For all that has been - thanks. For all that will be - yes."

Here's to one day of, "Thank you!" surrounded by 364 days of, "Yes!"