"We Need More Gratitude" by Belle

There’s a lot people have to be thankful for. Family, health,and education to name a few. Unfortunately, a lot of people aren’t as grateful as they should be. They overlook what they have and don’t express their thanks if something good does happen. From personal experiences and observations, I know that they are not very happy. They tend to focus on the negative and ignore the good things that happen in life.

Another reason people might not show gratitude as much as they should is because it’s hard to express. If a person does something for you that really makes an impact, the best you can really do is say thank you because in most cases, you won’t be able to match up to what that person did for you. However, the small thank you people can give might mean more than they think. It really depends on how you express it. If you say more than just a simple thank you and tell them how important they are and how much it really does mean to you, it will feel as though you’ve repaid that person back in some small way.

An important reason why people should express their gratitude is because not only does it make them feel good for saying it, the person on the receiving end will feel good about what they did and it might make them feel good about themselves as well. Again, if you’re looking for a way to repay someone for what they’ve done, a thank you can go a long way. People would probably express their thankfulness and gratitude more if they knew how much of a positive impact it has on the other person.

In my personal experience, I always feel better after thanking someone and letting them know how much it means to me. A good example of this would have to be my friend Cameron. I’ve been having a rough time with my family the past year and he has been my rock through all my anxiety and stress. He’s always there when I need him and while I try to thank him as many times as I can, I know I’ll never be able to do for him anything close to everything he’s done for me. The important thing is that I try and he knows, at least a little bit, how much I appreciate him and what his friendship means to me.

Another important person is my good friend and fellow tutor Colleen. She gives me inspiration and always makes my day better with her happiness and sense of humor. For example, I’m grateful for her help with expanding this prompt. I would have been super bored and lonely last year in journalism without her and Lara keeping me entertained. Colleen was the one to came over to talk to me, which I am extremely grateful for because I made two new friends.

Lara is another person to be grateful for because she is super nice and funny. She also is a great listener and wrote me a glowing paragraph about my tutoring after I helped her with an assignment. Lara is an example of how to show gratitude. Her paragraph made me feel good about my tutoring abilities and made me even happier to have her as a friend. Yet all I could give her was a smile and a thank you.

Gratitude may be hard to show, but people need to try harder to show it. It makes both people feel good and puts a little more positivity into the world. It may be impossible to repay someone, but the most you can do is at least try.