GratitudeIt’s Thanksgiving, which means we’re supposed to be grateful and think about all the reasons we’re better off than most people and all of that fluff.

    That’s nice and all, but gratitude should be more than a moral obligation. Over the past few years, I’ve made a habit of practicing gratitude, and it serves a number of useful, practical purposes. It’s made me happier. It’s helped me bounce back from setbacks better. It’s even benefited my finances. In honor of Thanksgiving, I thought I’d share a couple of essays I’ve written on gratitude and how you can harness it to make your life better, too. Enjoy, turkey-filled friends.

    Why Gratitude Makes You a Happier Person (Lifehacker): “Stop pitying yourself, people have it worse, you should be grateful.” You’ve probably heard this before, and it’s some of the most cliché, unhelpful advice around. When gratitude is inspired by guilt, obligation, or shame, that’s not gratitude at all. True gratitude is a practical tool that serves a number of purposes beyond the after school special fluff of being thankful for what you have. [Keep reading…]

    How a Bit of Gratitude Helped Improve My Spending Habits (Lifehacker): Money seems like it has everything to do with logic and little to do with feelings. But our emotions can have a pretty big impact on how we deal with our finances. Gratitude, for example, can affect spending (and even investing) in a big way. Here’s a first-hand account of how it changed my own financial habits for the better. [Keep reading…]

    Original graphic by: Gerd Altmann