I know a man in a big city who’s always complaining.

His name is Carl, and he never married, though when his sister died, he raised her two daughters. These two girls grew up to be wonderful young ladies. But as soon as they graduated from college they moved far away. Sure, they wanted to pursue their dreams, but they also didn’t want to live near a complainer.

When I would go visit Carl all he does is grumble about no one visiting him. Aside from his two adopted daughters, who only fly into town when their feelings of guilt become unbearable, few people have the resilience to put up with him for long. Carl calls them all ungrateful.

Unfortunately, this will probably not subside because Carl will not get the gratitude he wants as long as he keeps demanding it.

We cannot receive gratitude until we give it.

Like Carl, you and I can see that much of our dissatisfactions may be rooted in our inability to be more grateful. We can harbor envy, jealousy, and resentment because we spend too much time looking at what we don’t have – and too little concentrating on what we do.

By any measure, you and I are remarkably blessed. In fact, if we take a moment to count them, we soon find out this may take all day.