No, I didn’t mean to type ‘butts,’ just in case you are wondering. In the most sincere part of your heart, do you ever feel that there are times you are simply not grateful enough? Yes, you may be going through the motions of expressing gratitude and all that, yet some part of you seems to be begrudging because of some ‘buts.’

These silent ‘buts’ that we store in our hearts and hold them secretly as a yardstick to measure how much gratitude is worth expressing;

“But my dreams are yet to come true,”
“But I’m still broke and don’t know when my slim purse will have wads of cash in it.”
“But I’m fat (well that’s mostly your fault if I may say so).”
“But, if only I lived in a better house, drove a better car, have all that I want…
“But I’m doing all the right things yet nothing is going as right as it should.”

The line of buts can become endless if we keep searching. They might seem harmless, but the truth is that these ‘buts and ifs’ are a barrier to our happiness and success. They block us from simply letting go and losing ourselves in the joy of living itself because we are putting conditions on potential good actions in our lives. By our buts, we train our minds to accept virtual happiness and peace of mind only when certain conditions have been fulfilled.

All these ‘buts’ are crying out loud that we don’t have enough, that we are not happy, that we are not at peace and we will only be if…

To turn things around we have to relearn and reprogram our mindset. Count your buts one by one and contrast them with your blessings – even the most mundane of blessings.

Learning to give thanks with a grateful heart can be a tough lesson. There are days that I have truly struggled, but (well this is a good but) I’ve also learnt that by constantly keeping my affirmatives closer to heart, my number of buts are losing ground and it’s a practice worth keeping.