*Everything* Contributes to Your Advancement

Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude. – Emerson

On the heels of yesterday’s post, let me ask:

What are you rejecting?

What do you wish hadn’t happened?

Or, what situation or circumstance do you wish were different?

Because, as Emerson so eloquently describes, everything that happens contributes to your advancement.

***

(What are you resisting, that is persisting?)

***

But wait!

You protest: “Emerson said ‘every good thing that comes to you,’ not everything.”

Actually, read closer (as I needed to initially… ) the first half of the second sentence clears it all up:

“And because all things have contributed to your advancement . . . ” [my emphasis]

Being grateful for everything that has happened doesn’t mean you want “bad” things to happen again, or regularly, only that by rejecting certain parts of your experience, you reject parts of who you are (i.e. the stuff that has helped “make” you).

Be grateful for it all – and learn from it all – but seek to repeat and strengthen the best stuff.

Similar Posts

  • How Can I Serve You Best?

    I am considering changing the way I deliver “myself” to you. Currently you receive an e-mail alerting you to each new blog post. I do my best to write a post every weekday. These posts are between 100 and 750 words (lately in the neighborhood of 300). What would you think of one e-mail per…

  • Knowledge is Not Power

    It’s merely a component of power. Knowledge is no more power than flour is a cake. Flour, with other specific ingredients, combined in a specific order and manner and prepared in a particular way, results in a cake. So it is with knowledge. When you combine knowledge with other key ingredients, such as awareness, intention…

  • It’s Who You Get To Be

    Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory. – Mahatma Gandhi This reminds me of John Wooden’s teaching that it doesn’t matter if you win, if you don’t play your best, and it’s okay to lose if you do. The great privilege, and reward, is the competition, and who it…

  • You Chose This

    Whatever it is you have, or don’t have, in your life is your responsibility. Your life is the way it is because of the choices you made. Most people would resist what I say in the title of this post: you chose this. it might be more palatable for me to say: your life is the…

  • Get It Out of Your Head

    “Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.” – David Allen So much of the stress of modern life is worrying about what we think we need to do and worrying about forgetting what we think we need to do. Putting aside whether or not many of the things we worry about (and do,…

  • What Is Labor Day?

    Labor Day is more than a three-day-weekend or the cut-off for wearing white shorts/pants. Click here for a little history. It’s a time to honor and celebrate those who have worked so hard to make all the things we have, use and eat, and so on. It should also be a time to reflect on…