Season 2, Episode 7: What Are We Grateful For?

Rosanna 0:13
Welcome to season two, episode seven of the relentless pursuit podcast. Today’s episode is entitled, what are we grateful for. So if you’re listening to this in real time, it’s the day before Thanksgiving, and maybe you’re prepping your turkey or your stuffing or doing some baking of apple pies with your kids or listing what you’re grateful for. But maybe you’re catching this after Thanksgiving. And that’s okay. We know it’s easy to get behind on listening. But I think this topic of what are we grateful for extends all year long. And it’s not just Thanksgiving. But I think it was the perfect time to just bring up this topic of having this mindfulness about being grateful for the things that we do have.

Jordan 0:55
And that’s what I like about Thanksgiving, it is a day that’s set aside in this country to especially be thankful for what we have. But we can we can do that any time of the year. And we I think that’s what we’ll explore today, too, is how can we have that attitude, really, at any point, and especially take advantage of thanksgiving to focus on it?

Rosanna 1:16
So why don’t you kind of start us off today with just talking a little bit about Thanksgiving, the holiday? And let that kind of be the foundation for kind of what we build on today?

Jordan 1:26
Yeah, well, I think all of us remember from our childhood, like maybe cutting out pilgrims in school and talking about some of the basics of just American history. And knowing that this was a festival, a celebration of sorts, where some pilgrims were back in the 16 hundred’s and founded their colony. And set day actually, they set three days aside to kind of be celebrate separative of what they had. And there’s a lot of really fascinating details around that original Thanksgiving. But the term Thanksgiving with a lowercase t is just actually something that people would do all the time where they have like smaller celebrations or smaller ways to observe the things that they’re grateful for. And so the capital T Thanksgiving kind of has an interesting history, like throughout America wasn’t really a national holiday until the 1860s. And even then has like morphed over time into the modern day to the modern way that we celebrate it now. So. But one of the things that has stood out to me over the years that I’ve I’ve spoken with you about is head, it is so close to Christmas, that in a lot of ways it gets overshadowed by the consumeristic monolith that Christmas has unfortunately become. And we see this irony that setup where on the one hand, we have this day that is set aside for us to give thanks for what we have. But the day following that is the day that we go spend the most money compared to any other day in the year buying more things. And oftentimes those other things are gifts, but that encroaches on our ability to, I think truly express what we could Thanksgiving. And we even have like these sales that start earlier and earlier. So people are waking up early on Black Friday, or even leaving Thanksgiving dinner, to go catch this next sale and save a few bucks. And so I think that is like one of those national ironies that we can have two competing interests, on the one hand, one hand being grateful for what we have, and on the other hand, trying to pursue more.

Rosanna 3:47
Well, what’s interesting is that people who know me personally know that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Mine to mine has always been at. And I think it stems it stems from a variety of things. Things getting was the holiday that my mom hosted when we were kids. And so my aunts and uncles and cousins would come over and I remember that being some of the fondest memories and my dad is one of four siblings and everybody has almost everybody has three kids. And I mean it was a houseful but it was I just remember that being like a really special time and both sets of grandparents being there, and really celebrating that. And then as I’ve gotten older, I’ve always said that I’ve loved Thanksgiving. And it’s not because I love Turkey. It’s not because I love stuffing or ham or cream. I actually hate the Thanksgiving menu. But to me there’s something like so beautiful about Thanksgiving that we’re gathering together. And it’s about nothing else than gathering. And I’ve even written a blog post about like, kind of like what’s your gather? And like what what our gather as a family is and why that’s important. And so that’s always been and I’ve kind of argued that argued with friends of mine but I mean I think of two of my best friends and both I’m like, Oh my gosh, I love Christmas. I love everything about Christmas.

Jordan 4:56
But in the finish time of year two isn’t a season

Rosanna 4:58
correct and but For me, Christmas is stressful. And there’s like a lot of expectations that you know, come with gifts and giving and exchanges and even expectations for families and grandparents and like, there’s just so many things to manage that the magic for Christmas is often lost for me, especially as a mom trying to like, facilitate that for my family. But to me, there’s still something so warm and comforting about Thanksgiving. And that’s a mentality that I would like to like, let last all year long. And so that’s why I’m excited about talking about it today.

Jordan 5:33
Yeah, yeah, I feel like Thanksgiving is a holiday is the least infiltrated by outside interests. Right? It is. It is a simple holidays, simple concept, thankfulness. And we gather around that concept. So it’s a meal and we have family dinner, every man’s

Unknown Speaker 5:50
gluttony is a meal

Jordan 5:52
with a purpose, right?

Rosanna 5:54
Yeah. And well, yeah, so setting an intention for that meal. And for Thanksgiving, and even trying to cultivate that attitude and mindset with your family, or the people gathering around your table, like sharing what you’re thankful for, what you’re grateful for, or the blessings that have overflowed in the year. But sometimes it’s hard for people to want to talk about those things, or even, you know, speak them in front of others that they’re, like embarrassed or that it’s vulnerable. But I think that that could be really important. So let’s just talk about this perspective. Before we kind of dive into our q&a unless you have something else you want to add No. Okay. I think sometimes what overshadows like Thanksgiving, and you kind of mentioned this with like that Black Friday, the day after, and the the Christmas season kind of right on its tail is we often let our own comparison to others who have more derail us from finding contentment, and thanks for what we do have. And so we’re always looking at like, even with Christmas like, right, like buying those gifts that the kids want, based on what their friends have, or what they’re seeing on commercials or whatever we kind of like, let that let us not be grateful for what we have. But how often do we really think about those who have less than us. And so I just kind of looked up a quick stat. And it says here, according to World Vision, org, recent estimates for global poverty are at that 8.6% of the world, or 730 6 million people live in extreme poverty, and $1 and 90 cents, or less a day, according to the World Bank. And in the United States, 12.3% of the population, or 37, or 39 point 7 million people live in poverty with an income of less than 33.26 per day. According to the 2017 sodas $33 $33 and 26 cents, I don’t know why I couldn’t say that out loud. I was like so focused on the number that I printed, mispronounced it. But when we think of those numbers, so whether it’s worldwide or even within the United States, how grateful should we be for all of the things that we have.

Jordan 7:58
So we often have it flip flops, where we focus on those who have more, and then we feel worse about ourselves for what we don’t have. Whereas if we realize how much we do have, then that puts us in a position to be more grateful. Yeah,

Rosanna 8:14
and I think we live in a time, and we live in a world where we have a lot, but because we’ve always had what we have, and we don’t have maybe a more global perspective of what other people have or don’t have in the world, we miss the fact that we should be thankful and grateful for all the things that we do have.

Jordan 8:34
But I think a lot of our happiness and gratitude is connected to, like, just a comparison. And I hate to say that, but that’s just I think part of human psychology is to see what does your neighbor have that you don’t and then you want that, except our neighborhood has gotten very, very big over the last 20 years because we used to really compare ourselves to people on our streets or people in our town. And then when you have like radio and television that kind of expands like what’s expands your understanding of what’s available in the world. And now we have the internet and we have social media, and you can really get the sense of kind of the best of the best in the world. You see the richest and you see like the most fit and attractive and, and all the gizmos and gadgets and items that people have and you realize more and more and more what you lack. And so it is I think well maybe

Rosanna 9:29
not even what you lack what a perceived lacking in perceived because a picture of right a very posed picture of something may lead you to believe that someone is happy or fulfilled or is has it all together when what is behind the camera is not being reflected.

Jordan 9:48
Right? So it’s going to get getting at the nature of true happiness and true gratitude for what we have and not taking for granted what we have. If it is just normal. If it is just you know what we have on any day. Pay? Well,

Rosanna 10:00
and I think that brings up the term that we all know that we sometimes hashtag as first world problems. Yeah. First world problems defined founder looked up the definition for it. But do you look

Jordan 10:13
at Urban Dictionary? I did

Rosanna 10:15
not use Urban Dictionary, the perceived absence of what we’d call a pressing concerns. Okay, so the perceived procedure I can’t I talk today the perceived absence of what we’d call a present pressing concern. Because like, really, what do we have to complain about? Is the internet spotty, today? No, we let that derail our whole day. And you know, how unfortunate and I can’t do my research and I my my zoom calls, not like, we let that like derail our life, when this is not a pressing, people don’t eat. People don’t have clean water, and we’re letting that like derail us, or you know, I go to Costco, and there’s no Dave’s Killer bread.

Jordan 10:51
Yeah. What are we gonna eat? No,

Rosanna 10:53
I gotta eat like holy bread. Like, we’ve become so accustomed to being so comfortable and to have so many things at our disposal, that when we don’t get them immediately, they derail us. And why are we letting these things derail us? Like these things are not things that should upset us, these things are not the things that we should be complaining about. And it’s all about a shift in perspective.

Jordan 11:14
So you’re suggesting that we and we joke about like our firstworldproblems, I think we all agree like that, even that phrase helps us take a step back and be like, okay, like, this is really not this huge deal. But it has the capacity to become a huge deal if I let

Rosanna 11:29
right. And you know, and that’s not to say, you know, our firstworldproblems aside, that, just because we are blessed, and we do have a lot, that it doesn’t mean that our lives are not easier without struggle, right? We may have clean water and food and a home. But a lot of people have a lot of other things going on in their lives that are serious, you know, whether it’s anxiety or depression, or like, like a relationship, like whatever it is, like there are heard things, people without jobs, people losing jobs, people’s kids are struggling, they don’t know how to help them. Like, there are a lot of serious things. But even with those problems, whether it’s financial, emotional, whatever, there are still things in our life to be grateful for. And I think that’s part of it, too. It’s not, even if there are hard things, we can still be grateful, we can still be thankful. And we can still choose joy in those circumstances.

Jordan 12:25
You ready for some q&a?

Rosanna 12:27
Yeah. Would you want to start us off?

Jordan 12:29
Yeah. Because I just have a question that kind of stems from that. So it seems like I’m just gonna ask you to explain that more. So it seems like what you’re saying is that, in any given circumstance, we have equal opportunity for focusing on what’s wrong or what we don’t have, or focusing on what’s right. And what we do have. So can you can you just explain that a little bit more like, how does gratitude become I hate to use the cliche, but how does gratitude become an attitude or a habit?

Rosanna 13:00
I think, when I was thinking about this topic, and you know, even just do some research with those statistics, and we’ve touched on this before in previous episodes, where we kind of have this tendency to grumble. And so it’s choosing gratitude over grumbling. I printed this chart because I’ve seen this before. And usually like it’s like, on mommy blogs, and all of that kind of things. And at the top, it says I am grateful for, okay, and so there’s a list of all of these things that are like perceived hardships, and they are okay, I’m home with our kids a lot. I still work but I’m home with them a lot. And the days are long. The years are short, but the days are long. And so really, lots of times I had a hard week this week, I was trying to juggle events and the kids were home and their hybrid back to school, which means they’re only there like one or two days a week and so there was a lot I was juggling, and there was a there were a lot of great things that happened our kid won an award, a character award and American character award our fifth grader won it Yeah. And it was probably one of the most intense emotions I felt in a while. But on the same day and even the next day, it was a hard day just because the kid juggle was hard. So let me share this inside as early I am grateful for and it says early wake ups. Okay, I am not a morning person. I do not like to get up any earlier. So I am grateful for early wake ups and it’s an arrow and next it says children to love

Jordan 14:28
so there’s the thing that we could complain about correct which which we which we

Rosanna 14:32
did we actually complained about early wakeups this morning we

Jordan 14:34
have to compare what time did you wake up oh yesterday I woke up with this. And so that is that is easy to kind of default to and be like ah crud like I kind of way earlier than I intended to today the sun isn’t out yet.

Rosanna 14:46
The kids are awake, or the puppy has to go out right for us. It’s the new puppy so it’s like early wakeups a new puppy to the family. So it’s kind of like shifting that mentality. Okay, so then also house to clean. I am grateful for a house to clean right now. And grateful for chores or other things that they have to do. But that means we have a safe place to live. Laundry to do. I am grateful for laundry to do means we have clothes to wear, right? There are people in the world who do not have close to where they’re not clean either. I am grateful for dirty dishes means we have food to eat. I am grateful for crumbs under the table is like my biggest pet peeve. I don’t. How many times do I clean the floor? Day Three? Yeah. Someone said I’ve come to your house. And there’s never crumbs. I’m like, I vacuum a lot. I just I don’t like stuffing crumbs. Yeah. But crumbs under the table means we have family meals. That means we have food to eat. And we spend time gathered around our table. So it goes on and on grocery shopping to do means we have money to use to buy them toilets to clean, we have indoor plumbing and running water. Lots of noise. That means our kids are are having fun, they’re learning. They’re growing. They’re learning how to negotiate and bicker with one another right? And less questions, right? These kids are home we’re learning endless questions, a child who is learning and getting into bed tired in store? You know, I’m grateful for still being alive.

Jordan 16:00
Yeah. And so we could take So what you’re saying is you can take any complaint or any chore and just reverse and focus on Well, why don’t why do we even have this drawer in the first place? It’s because that there’s something there that I can be grateful for? Yeah, you know, can complain about work and bosses and those kinds of things. And that can be very stressful. But it’s like, well, I have a job. I have provision, you know,

Rosanna 16:22
well, and I think about your job too, because I’m so thankful for your job. Because in this whole pandemic, we’ve seen so many people lose their jobs. We’ve seen businesses shuttered like people’s livelihoods, their dreams, things that they’ve invested, right, hundreds of thousand dollars into our crumbling and I’m so thankful that you have a steady job. And even though schools are not open, you’re still working, and you’re still teaching and you have amazing insurance and like How many times are we grateful for the insurance that we have to like have health care? Yeah. So that when our kids have to go to the doctor, like

Jordan 16:52
I would say not enough, but I can honestly say like there’s there’s not a day that has gone by that I haven’t felt some degree of gratitude for for those things like just for just the like, financial security and unsteadiness and the type of work which I love. And I feel genuinely fortunate to be in the position that I’m in. So that has been a consistent feeling of gratitude even amidst like some of the just the day to day stresses and efforts and turmoil that can take place.

Rosanna 17:25
But I think it’s the the notion is like even though we have that grumbling, or like we want to grumble, you know, because we’re human, and we’re flawed and all of that, like, we have to turn our grumbling into gratitude, like, okay, yeah, like you could have your moment but like, don’t let that cloud because gratitude turns what we have into enough. And not only enough, but into more when we have what we need, then we have more than enough.

Jordan 17:47
Yeah. So I feel like it’s it’s easy for us to sit back and to say, like, look at what we have, like we of course we’re grateful for it, right? Because I feel like we have quite a bit I feel like I have I feel like the richest man in the world, just with the family that we have and the household that we can share that in. And I feel like I want nothing. But is it is it too easy for us to like sit back and say like, Oh, well, you know, everyone should be more grateful because you just focus on what you have. And it’s that easy.

Rosanna 18:22
Well, that’s one of my questions is what keeps us from being thankful? What keeps us from being grateful? Like, oh, yeah, I’m grateful for all of this. What do you think keeps us from that? Like, if you could define it or point to a few things. What do you think like? What do you think keeps us from being thankful or for grateful, like, in a more intentional way, instead of just like flippantly saying, I’m so thankful, right? Oh, I’m so grateful for this job. Yeah, like I say, it’s like lip service. It’s kind of like the I Love You, you say, but you like say it as just like a Yeah, instead of like, meaning it

Jordan 18:52
right? I think we so tend to take things for granted. Like what whatever we happen to have, it is very easy to just assume that it’s there, and not find a way to appreciate it. We often don’t appreciate something until it’s gone, you know? And so is there a way to not have that thing gone for life. And I still recognize the value that it brings to us and whatever degree. So I think that’s the first it was like just recognizing like, it’s it’s this moment of recognition. And we don’t we don’t pause, to look around ourselves enough to recognize those things that we have. In fact, it’s easier to complain because we’re so focused, like our wants are so up and down, right? So when you said we want something, it’s kind of expressing this, this lack, I want I need this or that and it’s much easier to focus on fulfilling that current gap than looking at the, like the wide chasms that are fulfilled through the things that we already have.

Rosanna 19:53
Yeah, you know, I think sometimes we even need to remember and I don’t want to say the bad but that times that we struggled, or the times we were so wanting something, and it took a while to get it, you know, in those desperate times we really like, are in tune maybe with more of like what we actually need, or what we want or what we’re thankful for when times are tough. And I, and maybe I’m wrong, or maybe it’s just me, but when things are good, I think, for me, it’s like harder to be grateful. Because you don’t see it. It’s like this expected goodness. So it’s like goodness upon goodness, and like more and more and more and more and more. And then it’s like, all of a sudden, when you’re like, slightly uncomfortable, you’re like, it kind of like knocks you down a little bit. Yeah. And so I think there’s probably in many of the areas of our life, there are times when things haven’t been great. But when we look back, and they haven’t been great, you can kind of see that like, despite like a struggle or a hardship, like there are still things around it. They’re very good. It reminds me a little bit of 2020 You know, I’ve seen so many meems t shirts, saying slogans about like, let’s pretend this never happened. You know, like all of those types of things. Like, this wasn’t the year we won. And you know, now, you know, Halloween, there’s a full moon on Halloween. So we just need the virgin to light the candle and the Sanderson sisters will emerge. And then that will be like the big shebang of like, 2020. You know, it’s like all of these jokes. And I told, I’ve told a couple friends of mine, I said, When if you really stop and look around at 2020, there have been a lot of amazing things. And I just reminded a friend of this yesterday. And she like named some like bad things for me that have happened in 2020. And then a couple of things coming up that like she’s not looking forward to. I said, Yeah, but what about you remember this and this and this. And it was like this realization of like, it’s easy to complain about this year, because 2020 was a doozy. But please take a moment today. Take a moment tomorrow, take a moment next week, whenever you’re listening to this, and just quiet yourself for a minute and look for the good. And I bet the list will be longer than you think.

Jordan 21:57
It almost sounds like a confirmation bias. Where if Overall, we tell ourselves that things are hard and that we’re we’re lacking what we need, then we’re going to find the facts that support that. And if we reverse that, if we tell ourselves that life is good, and we have the things that we need, then we’re going to find the facts to support that.

Rosanna 22:18
Okay. Yeah, it reminds you of this quote, that I found it says do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for. And I think that’s kind of one of those perspectives, too. Right for the longest time you like work up to saving for a house. And then you start complaining about the house of all the things you got to fix, right? for so long. You wanted a child or you tried really hard for children, and it was a struggle, and there’s some people who are still without, and you’ve got a houseful and they’re driving you crazy. Like it’s, we hoped for these things we planned for these things, we prayed for these things we saved for these things. And then we grumble about the things that we once hoped for.

Jordan 22:59
It’s like every every luxury. And every blessing is a double edged sword because it comes with responsibility. It comes with like implication of caring for it, or maintaining it, and so on. And that’s that’s where our chores come in, right? Like we have dishes to do well, that’s because we just hit Create meals and family around the table together. So there’s really no enjoying one without enduring the other right, you get to enjoy the blessings. But there’s the the tasks that come with it to facilitate those blessings in the first place.

Rosanna 23:32
Do you have a question for me? Or do I need to give you one

Jordan 23:34
you can give me I do have a few more bucks. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 23:37
I have like,

Unknown Speaker 23:38
I don’t Okay, let

Rosanna 23:39
me let’s just go to this one who taught you to be grateful? And how do we teach our children to be grateful? Because I feel like the world that we grew up in is different than the world our kids are growing up in. And so is gratefulness, this or Thanksgiving or thankfulness, the same for our kids? That it was for us? will it continue to be the same? Or will it look different because our world has changed significantly.

Jordan 24:05
I believe this and I don’t know if there’s there’s facts to validate this. But I feel like the more you have, the less grateful you may be prone to be. And so that’s the the irony of living in the land of plenty is that when you when you have a lot when you have more than what you need, it’s difficult to like find the gratitude within that. So I look at that generate generationally. And when we were growing up, it was still the land of plenty like I felt like we had everything that we needed. And the the first lessons about gratitude would come from my parents, you know, when you’re a little kid they teach you to say thank you to people when they hand you something or when they do something for you. And you know, as you get older, I think that that becomes more complex and what you’re able to identify in your life. And then I would say you have taught me a great deal about gratitude as Well, just because we’ve spent so many years together, and I feel like you’re just you’re like your wisdom and your your value centric way of living has has rubbed off in a positive way. So, I think that those are like some of the core people that have taught me to like, look at what we have, and to have that person that positive perspective towards it. But I think it’s challenging for our kids, because now that we are in a world where we can provide not just what we had, but even even more so. And there’s more entertainments, there’s more gadgets for cheaper than are available, you know, everything is bigger and brighter. And I think that compounds, what they have available to them, and because that they become accustomed to that, like their their norm, in a sense is just say, like, a little higher than what our norm was, in terms of the experiences and the materials that they’re exposed to. So I think it does present this challenge to today’s parents to in the midst of that, still teach them to take a step back and recognize what they have.

Rosanna 26:08
Well, it makes me think of friends of ours who are Indian. And they took their kids to India, like last December for three or four weeks. And just like the culture, there is different, like, obviously, there’s a lot of poverty there. There’s a lot of kids in the streets who like you know, don’t even have like basic needs or necessities, and even kids in houses that are like house maids, but their children, these children are like really never go to school. And there, they are allowed to like live with the family in an act like to serve them. And I just remember the couple like kind of telling us about like this realization to their kids that like, not everybody has, like the schooling that you have. And like that’s a privilege. And that’s something we should be thankful for and grateful for. And that like the rest of the world doesn’t live the way that we do. And so even just getting them to see what’s outside of their immediate community and neighborhood and state and country like the the more we expose them to things that are outside of the norm for them. Maybe the more that their eyes are opened up as to what they really do have because they don’t know anything else than other than what they see right in front of them. Because everything here is the same. And everybody, most people have more than the same or more. Yeah, and nobody has less. Yeah. So they live a very comfortable life. So I think teaching of gratefulness, I’m not saying like yes, take your children to a third world country and have them look around. But like, what opportunities are you providing? Like? Are you volunteering together? For Feed My Starving Children? Or at a soup kitchen? Are you buying less gifts for each other? And more from a Giving Tree? This like? How are you explaining how the rest of the world works? outside of you could recognize

Jordan 27:47
like in the position that you’re in? Yeah, that was gonna be one of my questions, too. Is there a natural connection between gratitude and charity?

Rosanna 27:55
Um, I have another quote,

Jordan 27:58
one step ahead of me.

Rosanna 28:00
Let me just find it. This is by W. Clement stone, and he says, if you are really thankful, what do you do? You share? And so how do we get to a place of feeling so thankful for what we have, that it’s no longer about getting more, but that it’s about sharing it and giving it away to others?

Jordan 28:20
Mm hmm. Yeah. And, you know, going back to, you know, talking about some friends of ours, I’ve heard this from from your family as well, right, a family of immigrants, they’ve expressed the same thing where like, where they came from, they didn’t have and when they came to the United States, like, of course, like one of the first holidays that they adopt, they become acclimated to is thanksgiving to recognize, like, compared to what they came from, and, you know, contrasting that to what they now have, and enjoying that with one another. Enjoying that with their children is kind of a significant attitude that they adopt.

Rosanna 28:56
Well, and that’s what I like about my parents not being from here, sometimes, they know what it’s like to not have all of the things that we have. And then when they came here, they work so hard to give us the things that they didn’t have that they wanted for us, including education and, and those types of things. And so, you know, like, I don’t know what it’s like to not have a meal, or to have to share a loaf of bread with like, 10 people in your family and like, that’s dinner, like, that’s foreign to me. So like when my dad when we’re all together at a family dinner on a Sunday, and he kind of pushes himself away from the table and he’s full and he says, Thanks, God, we ate again today. Like, because he knows what it means to not eat or to go to bed hungry. And it’s like that reminder that like, yeah, I maybe wouldn’t have said that because that’s normal for us. But it’s his recollection of not having that that reminds him to be thankful. And he’s not, you know, a religious person, but he’s genuinely thankful for those things.

Jordan 29:55
That was gonna be one of my questions to kind of stemming off of that is like does gratitude need to be Like directed towards someone or something? Like, do you need to, like be thankful to God or thankful, like towards people? Or can it be a little bit like just more broad is just an attitude that’s that’s just generally directed?

Rosanna 30:16
I think it’d be all of those things, you know, I think everyone’s expression of their thankfulness of their blessings of their beliefs are different. And so some will, you know, thank God for that. Some will write it in a journal. Some will pray, some will meditate over it, some will directly share it with someone, Jordan, I’m so thankful for you for partnering with me and raising these kids that it’s not just my response, like, I think those are all ways to do it. And I think you have to find what fits and what’s right for you. But I think it has to be a daily practice. It’s not a every year on Thanksgiving kind of practice. It’s not a once a month practice, like, you know, you give your dog his heartworm medicine once it like, I think it has to be a daily practice. Mm hmm. That’s my thought.

Jordan 31:02
Yeah. All right. So let’s get into some of the takeaways then. Because obviously, this is very timely. And that’s we’re talking about this right around Thanksgiving. But like stemming off of that, we realize this is this is daily, this is year round kind of attitude that we should be adopting.

Rosanna 31:19
So I think you’d really have to just be ready to shift your mindset to having a daily attitude of gratitude. So if you’re going to do that, I think there are maybe three things that you can do. And so I would just say that you would, whether it’s through a journal, a gratitude list, which I think I created in episode one. And so maybe we can link it to this. It’s like a sheet. The big things in the little things that we’re thankful for us pursuit gratitude guide, yes, lucky for you, I have a little design background, and they came up with like a little worksheet grateful, got our excuse, yes, or our logo on it. But like download that, whether it’s through prayer, or meditation, right, like you, there’s all of these, like prayer and meditation apps that can all just be about like 365 days of gratitude. And so they kind of just walk you through a meditation and at the end of it, like, you know, whether you internalize it or speak it out or write it down, but it can like lead you through that, right, we all have two minutes a day to be able to jot down a list. So maybe it’s the first thing you do when you wake up. The last thing you do before bed, something you do with your family over your gather. So whether it’s breakfast or dinner, like cultivating that as a group, but vowing to do it daily. And so then you only do it five out of the seven days a week. But that’s, that’s something that’s a change, and it puts you in a right mindset. The second I had mentioned earlier would be to remember the bad or remember the times of want or the times of not having enough, or the the times that were hard, so that when you go when you revisit that feeling, it makes you overflow with the joy of what you have now. And then the third would be to actively shift your mindset, from expectation to Thanksgiving, from grumbling to gratitude. So even in the things, right, even in the moments of these are the days, you don’t want to be in it. You know, right then is a good time to remind yourself, these are my kids and I love them. This kitchen is a mess and the pots and the pans need scrubbing. But man did we enjoy our dinner together. So shifting to one another to

Jordan 33:20
Yes, if we if one of us is feeling you know, more prone to the complaint or the focusing on the bad, then we can try to balance one another out. And I know it’s gonna get annoying, like, just be grateful for the meal that we had be grateful for the love in the household.

Rosanna 33:33
And that’s okay. Because when you’re annoyed with the dog, I’ll say, Amanda is all about the family memories. We’re doing it for the kids.

Jordan 33:38
Yeah. So in the moment, it I think will be annoying, to be honest. But it is it is healthy to continually use one another to counterbalance that mindset and keep us focused on what we know is genuinely what we value. Yeah, I

Rosanna 33:52
mean, I think since we started this podcast, this, that has been a good thing that you and I kind of remind each other and hold each other accountable because we’re having these conversations about these topics. And it’s good to know that we’re not just coming on these mics, looking at the camera and saying, Oh, these are the things you should do. And then like we’re total trolls to each other when we log off, or when we stopped the microphone. It’s causing us to hold each other accountable. And so hopefully, you’re listening and you’re sharing and you’re doing the same thing with the people in your life to

Jordan 34:18
exactly so yeah, these conversations we hope are really just models for the conversations you can share with the important people in your life and certainly has helped us think of a long way with some of our attitudes and perspectives and certainly in the way of gratitude.

Rosanna 34:33
So from our family to yours from the relentless pursuit podcast to wherever you’re listening, we’re wishing you a very happy Thanksgiving. We hope you take a moment to give thanks to turn your grumbling into gratitude and to not let comparison be the thief of your joy. So we’ll see you next time.

Jordan 34:52
Bye Bye, everybody. Bye. Thanks so much for listening to today’s show. We hope you will use this feature conversation is the starting point for euro. We hope you’re encouraged to think and act more intentionally.

Rosanna 35:05
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Jordan 35:17
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Rosanna 35:21
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Jordan 35:30
Until next time, let us know how you are taking life off autopilot

Rosanna 35:34
and relentlessly pursuing what next