African Villages – My Health Business

Develop the skill of Gratitude

Just today in class we were doing an exercise in Personal Development and discussing the skills we have in life now as we start our course in Health and Social care. We journeyed through numeracy, literacy, being a team worker and all the usual skills that would come to the mind of a teenager or young adult.

Just to make life interesting I threw in the word “Gratitude” and was not surprised when I got a sea of blank faces… .eh what ?…….what is she on about now?

What´s that ?

Now in all honesty I did not expect them to throw themselves fully into this discussion but what I really wanted to do was plant a seed of though that feeling “gratitude” is a skill that they should look at and one that they could grow over time .

The ability to be grateful….it´s quite simple really …… We are grateful for what we have.

My purpose in throwing this skill into the discussion is to try and show teenagers that if they stop looking at the blocks and the limitations they place on themselves they can develop a more open view of people of life in general and the world we live in.

In our western society where happiness and contentment are assumed to be connected to wealth and fame it is difficult to main focus and attention on developing this skill of gratitude but it will grow if we can maintain our focus. We are bombarded daily with stories of the rich and famous in the media so its not surprising that children grow up assuming that money somehow makes us successful and happy.

As the discussion in class moved forward and we all started to add the aspects of life we are grateful for it was enlightening to say the least and fun as well !

We looked at all those aspects in life that we take for granted in our western Society.

Free Health care, a home to live in, feeling secure in our homes and getting a good education were a few that were mentioned.

So does being grateful make us happy?

I cannot give you the answer to that as it is something you have to ask yourself. ……. but I can tell you a story .

The happiest people I have ever met where the children from the remote African Villages where we grew up in Northern Uganda. They had no shoes on their feet and most of the time had little clothes.