Counting your blessing: being thankful and grateful does help you feel NTV7

By Khor Gui Wei (Nathan)

Be grateful 感恩- The Honorable Zheng Yan, Founder of Charity Foundation Chi-tzu

Have you ever been throwing out your grievances to people around you about how boring your life is in Kampar? Weather is so hot la, parkings are so few la, lecture class, assignment exam SO MANY la (Tan, 2010). Arghh, you could not stand it.

But wait, have you ever tried to improve the situation?

Of course, you are not superman or wonderwoman. You can’t shot down the sun, build parking complex with one hand and topple down the management to overturn the system. But why don’t we start from simple thing, say yourself? Instead of trying hard to change the objective reality, I suggest we adjust our subjective inner state. Heard about Louis Armstrong before? Yes, he was the Jazz singer who sang “I feel good” whenever you switch your channel to NTV7. Here we will discuss about how to make yourself “feel good”.

If you ever had chance to go through those Holy Scriptures, you would find that most of the religions preach on one common theme- be grateful. Be it Christian, Islam or Buddhism. However, we are not going to discuss on religious basis. We shall see what researchers have found in their studies regarding gratitude, mostly done on adolescents.

Researchers discovered that people, who are grateful to things that happened around them, no matter big or small, tend to be more grateful, optimistic, satisfied with life condition and a decrease in negative affect (Froh, Yurkewicz, & Kashdan, 2009). Furthermore, one who is grateful tends to lend a helping hand to those in need. In other word, grateful people are more prosocial. Several researches also indicated grateful people tend to have better life appraisal and thus spend more time in exercising, resulting in better health (Emmons & McCullough, 2003). Besides than that, these people show higher levels of positive affect- proud, hopeful, inspired, forgiving, and excited (Froh, Yurkewicz, & Kashdan, 2009). Most importantly, grateful adolescents tend to report great satisfaction with their school experience (Froh, Sefick, & McCullough, 2008).

Perhaps after you read through the brief summary of the researches above, you would have doubted whether it could really be so powerful in improving your life, just by being grateful. So I shall say you could always try it yourself, no harm right? It won’t spend a single penny from your tight pocket, especially in this short semester.

If you would like to give it a try, here are few suggestions to end this sharing also :

1) Think back 5 things that you feel thankful for, big or small, everyday.

2) Say thank you to yourself, appreciating the efforts your SELF have put in. For instance, work hard in assignment, able to control your emotion and thus avoid interpersonal conflict.

3) Feel grateful to those who have helped you.

4) Feel grateful to what you have now ( opportunity of education, no famine, etc.)

5) And many many more ways waiting you to discover. = )

References

Emmons, R. A., & McCullough, M. E. (2003). Counting blessings versus burdens: an experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily lifes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 84 (2), 377-389.

Froh, J. J., Sefick, W. J., & McCullough, R. A. (2008). Counting blessings in adolescents: an experimental study of gratitude and subjective well-being. Journal of School Psychology , 46, 213-233.

Froh, J. J., Yurkewicz, C., & Kashdan, T. B. (2009). Gratitude and gratitude well-being in early adolescence: examine gender differences. Journal of Adolescence , 32, 633-650.