"Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation."
--Brian Tracy

This quote has been one of my favorites for a long time and I just felt inspired to share it with you all today.  I am so filled with gratitude for so many things....being born in this time, and place, an American, a woman, with the rights and liberties that I have.  Personal blessings like my intelligence (oops, correct the spelling error!), looks, and not least of all health and fitness.  I am grateful to the many wonderful people I have met through this hobby, both men and women, many of whom will never even see this since they have already moved on in some way or another.  Am I grateful to some more than others?  Perhaps!  But even the experiences which in the moment may be have seemed "less than awesome" had a lesson I could learn, and that is worth gratitude as well.

Guess what!  This is actually NOT a "I'm retiring" post!  Just something I wanted to write.  How about you?  To what or whom do you feel gratitude?  Is feeling gratitude the same as feeling thankful?  

One more:
"Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it."
--William Arthur Ward

I am grateful that I live in this great country of ours at a time of peace and relative ease. I'm grateful for the advances in medical science that has made for healthier and longer lives for all of us, and for me to still be among the living today.  We should all stop and think about how technology has impacted our daily lives and how much more we are aware of the world around us. And, I'm grateful that I've been able to use my talents to make some lasting positive changes in the community I live in. Finally, I'm grateful that I've been able to meet a beautiful intelligent woman from Minneapolis named Wendy

"It was the end of the Second World War - and there I was at high noon, walking through Times Square with a purple heart on."  -  Kurt Vonnegut ~ God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.

I saw your add on Eros, remembered our one time a couple years back, and there I was, walking through my apartment with . . .

This...
Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.
John Milton

not this...
Gratitude is a sickness suffered by dogs.
Joseph Stalin

Don't get me wrong; gratitude is a powerful and good emotion, a good thing to express.

"The other side of gratitude" is that there are many people that are ONLY at their best when feeling gratitude, but are otherwise less involved, less interested, less interesting.  My favorite people are happy to know me, happy to be around me without any need, reason or obligation for thanks. (There's a long story behind this observation, but not for publication.)