Thinking-Rich.com

I have so much to be grateful for I can’t begin to express it. I need to though … I need to share some of this feeling of abundance and I ask for your indulgence today. I hope you’ll appreciate these so-much-more articulate quotes and I truly hope that your life is filled with abundance and joy.

Just believe that if it’s not true right now, it can be and soon will be.

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. - Melody Beattie

Gratitude is one of the least articulate of the emotions, especially when it is deep. - Felix Frankfurter

Joy is the simplest form of gratitude. - Karl Barth

Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. - Melody Beattie

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. - Gilbert K. Chesterton

It’s a sign of mediocrity when you demonstrate gratitude with moderation. - Roberto Benigni

Gratitude helps you to grow and expand; gratitude brings joy and laughter into your life and into the lives of all those around you. - Eileen Caddy

Happiness is itself a kind of gratitude. - Joseph Wood Krutch

When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude. - Gilbert K. Chesterton

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world. - John Milton

Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation. - Brian Tracy

A single thankful thought towards heaven is the most perfect of all prayers. - Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. - William A. Ward

Whatever we are waiting for - peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of simple abundance - it will surely come to us, but only when we are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart. - Ellen Vaughn

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. - John Fitzgerald Kennedy

In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The aim of life is appreciation; there is no sense in not appreciating things; and there is no sense in having more of them if you have less appreciation of them. - Gilbert K. Chesterton

The unthankful heart discovers no mercies; but the thankful heart will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings. - Henry Ward Beecher

Appreciation is the highest form of prayer, for it acknowledges the presence of good wherever you shine the light of your thankful thoughts. - Alan Cohen

And a special thanks to you for taking your valuable time to read my blog.

~$~

Most Americans define wealth in terms of material possessions, would you agree? We look at people in the nicest clothes, coolest cars and fanciest homes and think they must be rich.

But most of the time what we’re seeing is the visible result of a high-consumption mindset, not a true mindset of wealth. High consumption basically means having more than you need or at least paying more than you have to for the necessities of life.

Owning a car is a necessity for most Americans. We need reliable, comfortable and convenient transportation. When we decide that transportation needs to be a sleek, foreign sports car with heated leather seats, we’ve left the realm of necessity and entered the zone of luxury.

To be clear, I don’t consider luxury to be a bad thing. The desire for luxury is often one of the reasons we work so damn hard. But when luxury begins to threaten your bottom line it is no longer an enjoyable benefit of wealth. It becomes a detriment to maintaining a comfortable lifestyle.

The same concept applies to houses, clothes, the latest electronics and your basic ostentatious spending. None of these - with the possible exception of your home - do anything to increase your net worth. For the most part, they lose value the moment you take them off the showroom floor.

Again, I’m not against luxury. Life is best when you can achieve your desires. It’s simply that a true mindset of wealth is to also desire the things that will add to your bottom line. If your luxuries become actual, valuable investments, you’ve got the mindset down.

Wealthy people always spend with an eye on the return for their investment.

We need to keep in mind that the huge house comes with huge responsibilities and expenses. Having the estate in the swank hood means hiring landscapers instead of the kid down the street to maintain the grounds. Your mortgage goes up, as do your insurance rates, utility bills, property taxes, repair bills and security costs.

The window coverings that seemed plush in your former home will certainly seem ratty compared to the neighbors’ Louis Vuitton-designed draperies. And speaking of keeping up with the neighbors - it’s doubtful they’re living the stress-free, healthy lifestyle we want to include in our definition of true wealth. The pressure to keep up is the thing that keeps most of us down.

So buy with a mind to high return instead of high consumption. Wealth is more of an inward satisfaction and security than an outward appearance of big money.

In fact, most of those who revel in flaunting their “wealth” are deeply in debt or soon to be. And isn’t that what we’re doing our best to avoid now?

~$~

The title of this post may sound counterintuitive - most people have the belief that it’s lack that causes us to be aware of everything we don’t have.

Well, I’m no pro at this yet, but people a lot more successful than I am say our lack of money, love, health and/or happiness comes directly from our thinking about not having it. Is that hard to believe? After all, we’re clearly lacking something or we wouldn’t feel such a need, right?

The truth is we developed our mindsets - of scarcity or otherwise - from those around us when we were growing up. When we were kids, we probably didn’t have real money worries. We didn’t have bills to pay. Most of us had homes, food, clothing, toys, and all the things we needed to survive and more. But what did we hear? Were our parents’ attitudes toward money positive?

I don’t know about you, but all I remember hearing was the negatives. Even when things were going well, my parents always argued about money. If we had it, then someone was spending it wrong. If we didn’t have it, then there was no way the bills were going to get paid. A lot of what my parents believed came true. I remember the embarrassment of having our electricity cut off more than once. We rarely had the luxury of a telephone. This was life, although my father was rarely unemployed and we were not living above our means.

So, what have I been concentrating on all of my life? Right. The negative. Is this true for you?

Harv Eker talks about all of us having a money blueprint. For most of us, the blueprint was pretty much filled before we could even add our own input. But Eker doesn’t want us left hanging with a crappy blueprint. Since we live in a world of cause and effect, he says we just need to focus on differentiating the two. Eker writes:

A lack of money is never, ever, ever a problem. A lack of money is merely a symptom of what is going on underneath.

Lack of money is the effect but what is the root cause? It boils down to this. The only way to change your “outer” world is to first change your “inner” world.

Whatever results you’re getting, be they rich or poor, good or bad, positive or negative, always remember that your outer world is simply a reflection of your inner world. If things aren’t going well in your outer life, it’s because things aren’t going well in your inner life. It’s that simple.

While I agree with the basis of what Eker says here - I can’t deny the inner/outer effects - I don’t think it’s “that simple.” OK, it might truly be that simple if we were starting today from Square One, but who of us are? Yes, we need to change what’s inside us, but that’s going to be damn hard to do if we just ignore what’s already outside.

A lack of money - right now - can be a problem.

What can’t be denied is that money is a symptom of what’s happening underneath. But just like a doctor treating a disease, we can’t ignore the symptoms while searching for their cause. We have to treat the fever as we look for the cause of infection.

So what we have to do is change our mindsets while dealing with the reality of our current lack. And change so much that we don’t allow any “new” lack to come into our lives. If you have a lack of money right now, deal with it by taking the right medicine for your outer pain while curing your inner wound. Take positive steps to deal with debt. Face up to what you need to do and do it without fear. You can change your inner blueprint and make sure you’re never in the position of scarcity again.

Think positively. Act positively. Receive the positive.

~$~