Attitude of Gratitude –
Tools to count your blessings
and really enjoy them

Attitude of Gratitude – Tools to count your blessings and really enjoy them

This episode is about taking advantage of Thanksgiving to learn the powerful tool of gratitude to count your blessings and tools to really enjoy them.  In the transcription of this podcast, you’ll see the link to my website where you can see more resources.

Close your eyes and count your blessings

Rabbi Noah Weinberg shared a story of a very wealthy businessman, let’s call him Allen, who lost most of his wealth and was standing by the picture window in his Manhattan office overlooking the city and contemplating taking his life.  

A custodian comes in and finds him opening the window to jump out.  He asks him why he is going to jump?  

Allen explains that he just lost billions in the stock market.  

The custodian asks, will can’t you just make it back?  

Allen says a lot quicker than you could, but you just don’t understand how I feel.  

The custodian says, that may be true, but, before you kill yourself, do me one favor.  Close your eyes and imagine that you are blind.  Think of all the beautiful things and people you’d love to see but you never will again because you’ve lost your eyesight.  Tell me the top five.  

Allen thought for a few minutes and replied: my wife and kids, my rose garden, my Rembrandt painting, the sunset over my house on the beach and the jungle in my backyard on my Hawaiian Island.  

The custodian then said, think about how devastated you feel that you will never see these again.  Now open your eyes, you’re not blind, you can still see them.  

Allen realized that he had so much pleasure to look forward to again and all thoughts of leaving this world behind left his mind.

Really Count your blessings exercise

Rabbi Weinberg would have us make a list of all our blessings in life down to our fingernails and hair.  Then he would have us sort the items from most to least important.  

Until you’ve really contemplated the blessings in your life and decided which is more important to you between your sense of touch or smell or even your eyelids or your fingernails you really have not taken counting your blessings seriously.  

The power of gratitude for what you have if you do this will be immense, but it is only the beginning.  Once you’ve fined tuned your gratitude to this degree you will be ready to really appreciate those blessings by using them!

A grateful attitude

Rabbi Yitzchok Lowenbraun was perhaps the second biggest influence on me after my parents.  

I’ll never forget this lesson he taught me about truly having gratitude for what others have done for you.  

Someone who had helped me tremendously as a teen was Danny Taragin. 

He nurtured my entrepreneurial spirit and he and his wife hosted me for many a Sabbath meal.  

When his father passed away, he needed a ride to the funeral in Silverspring Maryland from Baltimore where we lived.  I was studying in Ner Israel Rabbinical College at the time.  Rabbi Lowenbraun called me just before my main Talmud class of the day was to start to ask me to drive Danny.  I answered that my class was about to start so could I drive him after it ended?  Rabbi Lowenbraun very directly explained to me that my attitude of gratitude towards some one who had given me so much was sorely in need of major adjustment.  I received the very clear message and learned that gratitude needs to take priority over other also important things.

Attitude of gratitude meaning in practice

I am writing this podcast for many reasons.  One is to share and give back lessons and tools that have helped me have a dream life that I am very grateful to the creator for, but the first step is to be grateful to those human beings who got me here. Putting gratitude to human beings ahead of gratitude to the almighty might sound funny coming from a Rabbi so let me explain!

In this week’s Bible reading  (Genesis 31:29) Jacob is leaving his father in laws house Lavan and Lavan asks him to stay saying that the Almighty showered blessing on Lavan as long as Jacob was in his home.  

Jacob responded by pointing out that it was his hard work that the Creator blessed not Lavan and Lavan should recognize that and have gratitude to Jacob.  

Lavan found it much easier to have gratitude to the Almighty than to another human being.  

In Egypt Pharaoh said he no longer recognized all the Joseph had done for Egypt.  It was a short step from there to not recognizing the Almighty.  

Moses did not participate in the first two plagues because of his gratitude to the water in the Nile River having carried his ark and saved his life as a baby. 

Having gratitude to objects that help us may be a level beyond our ability but having gratitude to human beings allows us to truly have gratitude to the one who created us all.

First step to count your blessings and really enjoy them

This Thanksgiving, take the time off not to only buy material pleasure on black Friday and Cyber Monday.  

Make a list of the people who have influenced you in your life and reach out and thank them. 

Your pleasure from this will be more that you can measure, and you will be filled with a true attitude of gratitude.

In the next podcast, we will return to conclude our mini-series on time management with a look at an extra second Bonus Step: Accountability – the step that makes it all work

For more guidance and tips on how to live your dream life, go to my website, https://therabbiwhogotrichonsunday.com to access content-rich articles and more.

You can also access a link to that web page through the show notes, if you are listening to this podcast on any of the popular podcast platforms.

Resources:

1. 1. https://aish.com/48942721/  (Way #50: Rewards of Gratitude)
   2. https://60.ncsy.org/faces/rabbi-itchie-lowenbraun/