Living Life Fully’s Daily Pick-Me-Up

We put on an invitational track meet at our school the other day.  A few hundred high school students were there to compete, from over ten schools.  Everything went pretty smoothly–a lot of young athletes had the chance to compete against each other, and there were really no negative incidents.

There was something very positive that happened, though.  As everything was winding down and the students were heading back to their buses, a few athletes from one of the schools approached our head coach.  “Thank you very much for hosting the meet,” they said to him.  “It was great.”

Out of the few hundred students, three or four of them had taken the time and made the effort to thank the main person who had been in charge of making everything run smoothly.  I couldn’t help but think as I watched it happen, “Those kids are going to go far in life.”

You see, they already know one of life’s greatest secrets–when you’re grateful, express the gratitude.  When you’re thankful, make sure that you share that thankfulness.  I can’t begin to count how many times I’ve been thankful for something but I’ve kept quiet, not telling anyone that I was thankful.  Looking back on those situations, I really wish that I had taken the time and made the effort to say thank you to someone, to express the gratitude that I felt.  I’m sure that such an expression would have made them feel better.  I know that the thanks that the high school students said to the coach meant a lot to him, and were among the most important words he heard that evening.

A sincere thank you can be one of the most powerful expressions in our lives.  It’s unfortunate that most of us keep our thanks to ourselves, only rarely expressing the thoughts of gratitude that we have.  If I can learn to be better at expressing thanks when I feel them, then I’m certain that I’ll be making my life much richer and much, much fuller.

Those kids are going to go far in life because they know something important.  When you take the time to thank someone for something that they’ve done, then the next time they have a chance to do something for you, they’re much more likely to go all out to do it the best that they possibly can.  So their considerate thanks a couple of evenings ago can help to contribute to more positive events in their lives in the future.  It’s a simple law of life–we get what we give.  And if we give thanks, we get more reasons to continue to give thanks.

Practicing gratitude will help us more fully appreciate what has been offered us.  Being grateful influences our attitude; it softens our harsh exterior and takes the threat out of most new situations.

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