Pros And Cons Of Being Grateful

There is something all of us wanted, to obtain happiness, but how? Now, my topic here is gratefulness and gratitude. Gratitude, or grateful, is the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. What is the connection between happiness and gratefulness? Well, many people would say, when you are happy, you are grateful. However, think about this again. Is it really the happy people that are grateful? We all know quite a number of people. For example greedy, avarice, and rich who have everything that it would take to be happy, and they are not happy, because they want something else or they want more of the same. On the other hand, people who suffered from great misfortunes, misfortunes that we will never want in our life, are deeply happy. Why?

Because they are grateful(Steindl-Rast, TED.).
Well let's talk about the benefits of being grateful as a teenager. According to a study from the American Psychological Association, are more well-behaved at school and more hopeful than their less-grateful peers(Huffington Post). Being grateful change the behavior of the person to be positive. More importantly, being grateful can boost the grade of a student. As a student, I know how students are stressing over their grades.
"Grateful high-schoolers have higher GPAs -- as well as better social integration and satisfaction with life -- than their not-grateful counterparts, according to a 2010 study in the Journal of Happiness Studies. Researchers also found that grateful teens were less depressed or envious" (Huffington Post).
Now let's return the topic back to happiness. How does gratitude linked to the happiness? Being grateful to or towards yourself also can bring happiness to others. For example, if you successfully achieved your school career with good grades and graduate college with degrees, will your parents be happy? Will the people who cared about you be happy? Conversely, if you failed you school career, it'll not only emotionally damage yourself, it'll also hurt your family.
Now, let's talk about the benefits of being grateful as a person. Imagine yourself, helping a student doing a project, the student thanks you with gratitude and respects. Will you be happy? Now, imagine yourself again, helping the same student, but the student didn't show any sign of gratitude and think you're helping them because you wanted to get something from him. How would you feel, and how would you feel towards the student? According to a 2003 study in the "Journal of Personality and Social Psychology", gratitude could also boost pro-social behaviors, such as helping other people who have problems or lending emotional support to another person( Huffington Post). You've change to a person with gratitude. People will wanted to be friend with you, not you wanted to be friend with them. It creates a charm that attract people.
Being grateful also can affect you physically. It is linked to your health. It may sound odd, but people who is thankful throughout their day tend to sleep better. Psychology researchers found that when people spent 15 minutes jotting down what they're grateful for in a journal before bedtime, they fell asleep faster and stayed asleep longer (Huffington Post). Since being grateful is linked to emotions, it is also beneficial to the health of your heart.
"A 1995 study in the American Journal of Cardiology showed that appreciation and positive emotions are linked with changes in heart rate variability. This may be beneficial in the treatment of hypertension and in reducing the likelihood of sudden death in patients with congestive heart failure and coronary artery disease." (Huffington Post).

Can we be grateful for everything?

Certainly not. We cannot be grateful for violence, war, oppression, or exploitation. On the personal level, we cannot be grateful for the loss of a friend, for unfaithfulness, for bereavement. But I didn't say we can be grateful for everything. I meant that we can be grateful in every given moment for the opportunity. We can be grateful for having shelter, education, and food. We can also be grateful for being alive. There are so many more opportunities to be grateful we just don't notice. Gratitude can change our world in immensely important ways. If you're grateful, you're not fearful, and if you're not fearful, you're not violent. If you're grateful, you act out of a sense of enough or satisfy and not of a sense of scarcity. If you are grateful, you are enjoying the differences between people, and you are respectful to everybody, and that changes this power pyramid under which we live.(Steindl-Rast, TED.). If we're all grateful, the world will be a living heaven. All world where everyone is happy full with gratitude. There will be no violence, no war, and no depression. A world that's peaceful and full of happiness to show for our next

generation.