What 9/11 and a 3-Year-Old Taught Me About Gratitude

This is an updated version of an article I wrote and made publicly available awhile back:

One of the most important concepts Wallace D. Wattles wrote about in his books was gratitude. As a matter of fact, in the book for which he's best known, The Science of Getting Rich, Wallace D. Wattles devoted an entire chapter to gratitude and used the word gratitude some thirty-two times throughout the book.

Although I'd been studying The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles for over three years, and made incredible changes in my life by applying its principles, I still didn't completely get this gratitude thing.

I understood the importance of gratitude intellectually and, at least to some extent, was applying it in my life, but, and I don't know if this was just a guy thing or what, I didn't feel like I really understood it emotionally at a deep down, visceral level.

Then it happened...

September 11, 2001...

A day few of us will ever forget.

The one thing I'll always remember most about that fateful day was my son, who was three years old at the time, looking at me with his big brown eyes asking me the dreaded but inevitable...

"Why Daddy?"

For lack of anything better, I gave him the best good guy, bad guy analogy I could come up with at the time and then, for whatever reason, I ended it with, "as bad as this appears to be, we have a lot to be thankful for."

Hoping that was that, I quickly began thinking of something else we could do or talk about to get his mind off the horror he'd just witnessed on television.

Suddenly, I heard him ask...

"Like what Daddy?"

"Like what, what?" I replied.

"Like what we have to be thankful for?" he asked.

"Great," I thought to myself, "I thought we were done with this."

"Well," I said, "we can be thankful that you, me, and mommy are okay. A lot of little boys and girls lost their mommies or daddies today. Some of them lost both."

He thought for a moment and then asked, "What else Daddy?"

"Well," I replied, "we can be thankful that so many people were able to get out of those buildings alive before they collapsed."

"What else Daddy?" he asked.

"Well..." I hesitated, desperately trying to think of something else.

"Come on Daddy," he said, "what else we have to be thankful for?"

"Well," I said, "we can be thankful for all the brave fire fighters, paramedics, and police officers who are helping those who need it."

"And the fire fighters have fire trucks with lights and sirens, huh Daddy?" he asked with a smile on his face.

"Yes son, they do," I replied, returning his smile.

"What else Daddy?" he asked.

"Well son," I said, "we can be thankful that we have a strong military to protect us."

"And they have tanks, huh Daddy?" he asked, this time with a really big smile (for whatever reason, he really liked tanks).

"Yes son, they do," I replied, "and they have lots of them."

"What else we have to be thankful for Daddy?" he asked...

As his grilling continued (which at the time seemed like it went on forever), and the list of things we had to be thankful for grew larger and larger and larger, I could feel, rather dramatically, our thoughts shift from those of doubt, uncertainty, fear, and worry, to those of certainty and faith.

Finally...

I got it!

You see, all too often, when something's not right in our lives, or something's not the way we'd prefer it to be, even though it may be only a tiny portion of our overall experience, we tend to focus all our mental energy on it causing us to lose our perspective and, in the process, we virtually insure we'll get more of the same... more of what we don't want.

On the other hand...

Gratitude forces us to focus on what's right in our lives, on the things that are the way we'd prefer them to be, which, chances are, are the overwhelming majority of our experience at any given time, causing us to put things in their proper perspective and thereby virtually insuring we'll get more of the same... more of what we do want!

Since that unforgettable day, I've repeated this simple exercise dozens of times...

Whenever I feel thoughts of doubt, uncertainty, fear, or worry starting to creep in, I simply ask myself what I have to be thankful for right now and then I keep asking...

What else?...

It's never failed yet to almost instantly help me regain a constructive perspective and replace those destructive thoughts of doubt, uncertainty, fear, and worry with constructive thoughts of certainty and faith.

Thanks son!

Note: Interestingly enough, although he was only three at the time, it's a lesson he's never forgotten either.

Note: When things seem out-of-sorts in your life, the simple little exercise described above is one of the fastest ways I know of to re-center yourself or regain your footing, however you want to look at it, so you can move on in a constructive, magnetic frame of mind.

Develop Gratitude and Start Over

How to Have Gratitude for the Challenges You Face

Some Gratitude Each Day Will Chase the Blues Away!

The Best Time to Give Thanks Is Year-Round!

Use Gratitude to Find Your Purpose in Life