Why Gratitude is Essential to a Happy Life
By Jack Calhoun
PHJ Board Member
Consider, for a moment, what lies at the heart of peace, harmony and joy. What principle would
you find in the middle of the Venn diagram of those three areas?
Maybe there’s no one right answer - but, for me, there’s an obvious one: Gratitude.
When we are grateful, we feel at peace with ourselves and with others.
When we are grateful, we feel in harmony with the universe.
When we are grateful, we feel joyful just to be alive.
Having a “gratitude practice” has become such a common theme in our culture today that it can
seem a little cliché. If everyone’s doing it, it must be a passing fad - right?
Well, no. Sometimes everyone is doing it because it’s the right thing to do. And, the research
shows, the smart thing to do!
Consider these studies:
1) Gratitude has consistently been associated with greater well-being, optimism, and happiness,
and lower levels of depression and distress:
2) Gratitude is associated with better physical health indicators, including fewer symptoms,
better sleep, and healthier daily routines:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272735810000450
3) Gratitude builds community and improves relationships:
4) A gratitude practice can improve workplace mood, teamwork, and productivity, as well as
reduce burnout:
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/pdfs/GratitudePDFs/5Watkins-GratitudeHappiness.pdf
Clearly, practicing gratitude can improve literally every area of your life!
And yet… we often struggle to feel grateful in the moment. The world seems to ratchet up our
collective anxiety day after day, year after year. It’s easy to let fear and anxiety become our
default emotional states.
That’s why by it’s important to remember the phrase “gratitude practice.”
Since we’re genetically wired for fear and worry (it’s what kept our species alive in the days of
saber-toothed tigers), we have to practice being grateful every day.
We have to be intentional about it. We have to remind ourselves to open up our eyes and really
see the amazing, miraculous things in our lives we otherwise take for granted.
And if you need inspiration, remember this:
It’s impossible to feel both grateful and anxious at the same time.
The choice is yours.
Jack Calhoun is the founder and president of Encore Career Lab, a program for people
who are more interested in reinvention than retirement.