Thanksgiving as Good Practice

Gratitude is a choice. It is also always an available choice. No matter what difficulties buffet our lives, we have the option to identify something (however miniscule) and say thanks. Such a practice actually frees us to concentrate more fully on addressing our difficulties. Set into a context of gratitude, they lose their power to overwhelm or ruin or obsess us. Less afraid we are better poised to deal.
I'm discovering there seems to be a correlation between our practice of gratitude and our capacity to recognize that for which we might be grateful. The more we express our thanks, the more things we can see for which to be thankful. It's as if whatever the gravity of what currently requires our focus, we are always developing a peripheral vision of gratitude that is increasingly aware of far more than we can actually attend to. We acquire a competence to see that which will color and inform our focus in helpful, healthful ways.