WHY GRATITUDE
The Overflow You’ve Been Ignoring
Dear Why Team member,
I hope this week’s message finds you well and living in gratitude.
There have been few discoveries in my life more meaningful and impactful than the power of gratitude.
To be taught early the simple discipline of two words — thank you — and to express those words often, especially in our interactions with others, lays the foundation for a life of gratitude.
When little things go my way — the simple blessings throughout my day — I express thank you. I express gratitude even when no one else is present.
One of my favorite quotes from Meister Eckhart reads:
“If the only prayer you say in your whole life is thank you, that would be enough.”
I once read that we cannot be both depressed and grateful at the same time.
So the question becomes…
Is there an epidemic of depression? …or is there an epidemic of ingratitude?
How much suffering could be softened with gratitude?
How much suffering could be released through the simple expression of thank you?
Through some of my darkest days, I reminded myself often:
Bitterness is a poison we drink to hurt someone else.
So I asked myself a different question.
Is it possible to be grateful even for this pain?
Is it possible to be grateful that I survived what happened?
Did I not learn from it?
Am I not now more capable of helping someone else through something similar?
To those who are angry — and sometimes righteously so — this may sound like insanity.
But the question remains:
How is this bitterness serving me?
And perhaps more importantly… How is it serving others?
Research shows that gratitude literally changes our brain.
Regular expressions of gratitude create new neural pathways.
We’ve learned that neurons that fire together wire together.
Perhaps the true rocket fuel of life is gratitude.
How can we be a source of abundance in the lives of others if we are not aware of the abundance in our own life?
If we believe our cup is empty, how can we serve from it?
Even if we believe our cup isn’t quite full yet, perhaps our focus should be on filling it with gratitude.
The discipline of gratitude — reflecting on all that we have — can fill our cup to overflowing.
And when our cup overflows, we realize something important:
We have more than enough.
It is from that overflowing cup that we give —
more of our time,
more of our attention,
more of our resources.
Consider this for a moment:
I can walk.
I can talk.
I can hear.
I can see.
I am conscious.
I have food to eat.
A roof over my head.
Clean water to drink.
Nearly 1.5 billion people on Earth cannot access clean drinking water.
Yet here in America we have clean drinking water in our toilets.
When was the last time we were grateful for a shower?
Our own personal waterfall… inside our home… and we can even set the temperature.
What challenge in our life right now — what suffering — might gratitude help us face?
We don’t need to deny pain, suffering, or the terrible things that happen in this world.
But the more we focus on the weeds, the less light our attention gives to the grass.
I once heard a gardener say:
“Don’t pull weeds. Plant more grass.”
Our light of attention grows whatever we shine it on.
So if we want to bear more fruit for ourselves and others, we must regularly shine our attention on how incredible our lives truly are.
Sometimes all we need to do is think about those who have so very little to realize that we have so very much.
Right now, you and I can take a deep breath.
Somewhere in the world, someone is gasping for that very breath.
Oh we of little gratitude.
How much more could we be for ourselves and others if we simply expressed gratitude a little more often?
If you do not already practice this discipline, I promise you this:
It will absolutely transform your life and your experience of life.
So…
Why Thank You?
Because gratitude helps us become more.
Because gratitude reminds us that our cup runneth over.
Because gratitude moves us from scarcity to abundance.
Because gratitude helps us become a blessing to those around us.
And because…
Gifts are for giving.
And we have so much to give.
Among our Better Picks in ’26
Pick more to be grateful for.
Our most valuable currency is our life currency — our attention.
The question is not if we are spending it.
The question is:
What are we buying with it?
If we spend more of our attention on the abundance in our life, we will experience more abundance.
And that awareness empowers us to be more of a gift to others.
Because when we truly recognize we have more than enough…
We give more.
And here is one of life’s great paradoxes: We often keep most what we give away.
The memory of giving…
the joy of generosity…
the reminder of our own abundance…
Those dividends are immeasurable.
More gratitude than ever—
to make it our Best Week Ever!
Make it a great week,
Steve Luckenbach