Weekend Reading: Gratitude in Abundance

This article appears as part of Casey Weade's Weekend Reading for Retirees series. Every Friday, Casey highlights four hand-picked articles on trending retirement topics and delivers them straight to your email inbox. Get on the list here.
Weekend reading gratitude in abundance Weekend reading gratitude in abundance
Weekend Reading

Practicing gratitude is not always a conscious decision we all make. As author Jeremy Walter says here, “The more abundance we live in, the harder it is to be grateful.”

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The power of less: In a world where many of us go through the motions, we might often overlook the amount of excess in our lives - the abundance of blessings others might only dream of having. Noting the things we’re most thankful for doesn’t always come naturally, but Walter proposes here we can make the decision to purposefully build more gratitude within our abundance by fasting. This doesn’t necessarily mean in a literal sense, but levering the “less is more” mindset.

For example, while an evening full of Netflix shows might be your norm, what if you put a limit on that activity? Would it increase your appreciation? Or, what if going out to dinner wasn’t a regular basis activity, but a treat you enjoyed only on special occasions? What about that latte? Or dessert? The list could go on and on, but by recognizing the gifts we have in our lives and carrying out physical actions such as these, we might find more gratitude in what is often viewed as our “norm”.

A minimalist mindset: Absence makes the heart grow fonder. It should be practiced in all areas of life with greater emphasis as your abundance grows.