Happiness doesn’t produce gratitude. It’s the other way around. People who are grateful are happy. Those who wait for something to happen so they can be grateful end up being neither grateful nor happy. I grew up in a home where a blessing was always said at the table. Mother was a terrific cook, but it wasn’t her great meals that inspired the prayers. It was the genuine gratitude my parents felt for the food we ate. For the earth and sun and rain that produced it. For the farmers who tended and harvested it. For the stores that packaged and sold it. They were grateful for the Creator they credited with life itself. Circumstances do not create gratitude or ingratitude. That’s why we can read of a Bosnian refugee expressing thanks just for being alive on the same day we hear ourselves complaining about something as trivial as being stuck in traffic. Of all the useful lessons I learned as a child, none has proved more valuable than what my parents taught me about gratitude. It’s as simple as love, as profound as happiness and as vital to life as the air we breathe. ~Mort Crim