Gratefulness

As if to make-up for the progress I made the previous two nights, last night I spent my entire practice on one measure of music. Runs tend to give me more problems than lots of notes at once. Ask my fingers to hit 8-10 notes at a time and they will happily do their job. It helps that I have a fairly large hand-span. But ask my fingers to play one note at a time, very fast, and I run into trouble (no pun intended). Ah well...I'll just keep practicing. I almost had it up-to-speed by the end of the evening.

On another subject, I recently read a very interesting article in Reader's Digest about the benefits of gratefulness. It should not surprise Christians to hear that the benefits are wide-ranging. They have now *proven* (scientifically) that being grateful leads to:

• Improved outlook on life/reduces depression
• Better health (fewer colds, etc.)
• Better sleep
• Improved thinking skills (doctors who were given a small box of candy as a "thank you" diagnosed conditions faster and with greater success than those who were not)
• Better relationships (surprise - people prefer being around people who are grateful)
• Larger tips (for waitresses)
• Better grades in school

And the list goes on...you get the idea. I'm sure these are some of the many reasons why we are told to be thankful so many times in the Bible. The study also found that being grateful and saying thank you for things had a "multiplying" effect on those around the person being grateful. In other words, it is contagious!

So when you're feeling down, just start listing all the things you are grateful for and it will cheer you up (among other things).