Gratitude and Kindness

Practice kindness and gratitude towards others. Send compassion outward to others. Lose anger and be kind towards others. This generates a loving feeling in the heart that adds something wonderful to the experience of this moment.

Whenever I feel down, I try to think about the things that I should be grateful for. As I write this, I think about the devastating effects of COVID-19 all over the world. I returned from Australia to my home country, Bangladesh and I am fearful of the situation of COVID-19 in my country. This is a difficult time for everyone, and the future seems bleak. However, I am grateful for many things, one of the most important being the good health that I and my close ones have right now.

When I was younger, I used to practice mindful gratefulness. And I would always try to understand the rationale on why a person does what he/she does. I believe when we position our frame of mind to one of understanding, it helps us be calm and see the good in people. It makes us be grateful for all the good that we have in our lives.

Being grateful has many great benefits:

• It reminds us of the positive things in your life.
  It makes you happy about the people in your life, whether they’re loved ones or just a stranger you met who was kind to you in some ways.

• It turns bad things into good things.
  Be grateful you have challenges, and that life isn’t boring. Be grateful that you can learn from these challenges. Be thankful they make you a stronger person.

• It reminds us of what’s important.
  It’s hard to complain about the little things when you give thanks that your children are alive and healthy. It’s hard to get stressed out over paying bills when you are grateful there is a roof over your head.

• It reminds you to thank others.
  I’ll talk about this more below, but the simple act of saying “thank you” to someone can make a big difference in that person’s life. Calling them, emailing them, stopping by to say thank you … just taking that minute out of your life to tell them why you are grateful toward them is important to them. And being kind to a person will make you happy.