159 Brush your teeth after eating, put on clean clothes before going out, and appreciate what you have. Isn’t that what we teach our kids? I don’t know about you, but I do almost all of those things. Except I allow too few chances to slow down and be grateful for what I am and what I have. Even scientific evidence says that gratitude makes us happier, so I’m truly grateful for the reminder that comes with World Gratitude Day. World Gratitude Day came out of a celebration in Hawaii in 1965, according to DaysoftheYear. There are few details about the original group of people who gathered there, but as the story goes, when they went back to their homes after that celebration, they marked September 21st 1966 as Gratitude Day. And the tradition lives on. Legend or fact, any excuse is good for celebrating positive emotions. It turns out that expressing gratitude is a good way to become happy. According to an article on Harvard Health Publishing’s Healthbeat [bctt tweet=”In positive psychology research, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.” username=”scality”] The word gratitude comes from Latin word ‘gratus’ which translates to pleasing, thankful. The Italian word for thank you (grazie) has the same root. According to Wikipedia, gratitude is a feeling of appreciation felt by and/or similar positive response shown by the recipient of kindness, gifts, help, favors, or other types of generosity, towards the giver of such gifts. People in the US and Canada celebrate Thanksgiving each year, albeit on different days. Since Scality is a multinational company we’re grateful (pun intended) to be able to celebrate multiple holidays. So here we are, the whole team at Scality joining the crowd online with thoughts of appreciation of what we are, individually and collectively as a company. We took some time off of our schedule to think about the positive impact that others have on our lives. Even if science cannot prove conclusively that people who frequently express gratitude are happier, it’s hard to see a downside, so we’re going to try to take every chance possible to feel and share gratitude. Express a little bit of gratitude today and every day: at worst, you’ll make others feel good, and you may even add to that a happier you.
