EDITORIAL: Thankful for the gift of gratitude

A great prize awaits tomorrow, and it goes beyond perfectly cooked bird, sumptuous fixins and even the congregation gathered ‘round the table. 

If we take the time to contemplate and appreciate it, the most fulfilling Thanksgiving Day tradition is the gift of gratitude itself. 

The physical, emotional, social and spiritual gains that a firm grasp on gratitude offer have been well documented over time. Yet when we look around — and bravely inward — we see a world where the muscles of gratitude atrophy.

Let Thanksgiving Day remind us all that gratitude exercised daily can change the world.

Don't just take our word for it.

“Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.” — Aesop

"Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.” — Lionel Hampton

“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.” — Buddha

“Two kinds of gratitude: The sudden kind we feel for what we take; the larger kind we feel for what we give.” — Edwin Arlington Robinson

“The more grateful I am, the more beauty I see.” — Mary Davis

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” — Thornton Wilder

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” — John F. Kennedy

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”
 — Oprah Winfrey

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” — William Arthur Ward

“Gratitude is riches. Complaint is poverty.” — Doris Day

"Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart.” — Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Happy Thanksgiving, North Idaho.