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What is gratitude?

To me it is giving thanks. Thanks for life, and for everything we are blessed to have in our life. The attitude of gratitude is the opposite of "I want more. I wish I had (fill in the blank)." Gratitude is appreciation for all the things we do have.

I am so grateful for my childhood. Our family didn’t have much but I didn’t know that. I was excited with what we did: running and playing with many neighborhood kids, visiting my grandparents, and time with my family. At age four I would take things from all the kitchen cabinets and arrange them on the kitchen floor to play Grocery Store. I loved that simple activity!

Gratitude is one of the three keys to happiness along with forgiveness and love.

Once you choose to be happy, gratitude also is the highway that takes you there. WATCH: how to employ gratitude to achieve happiness.

For this Thanksgiving try thinking as the Dali Lama said, "Learn to love what we have, NOT to have what we want, to gain steady and stable happiness." This is the meaning of Thanksgiving.