Thank You For Being 'A Light In My Life': 30 Days Of Gratitude

NAPA, CA — Carole Schulman in Napa shared a special thank you to someone who has taught her much.

"I am so grateful for Patricia Campbell. She is a light in my life. We met 4 years ago. She was sitting on a bench at our local Target waiting for a Taxi that never came. I struck up a conversation and took her home. She has taught me about self-reliance, faith and giving unselfishly."

30 Days Of Gratitude

Patch's “30 Days Of Gratitude” is a series of articles exploring the intentionality of gratitude and featuring bits of wisdom from Patch readers. Come back to Across America Patch every day through November and read more.

Living with gratitude goes beyond merely being thankful. It doesn't mean pretending bad things don't happen, but rather savoring the goodness, according to experts on the topic, including Robert Emmons, a University of California, Davis, psychology professor who is known as the "father of gratitude."

In short, living with gratitude is "an affirmation of goodness" and a recognition of the good in the world as the source of our individual gifts, benefits and blessings. Gratitude is not singularly focused, Emmons said in a YouTube video for the Greater Good Science Center, but rather recognizes that the sources of goodness are other people who "gave us many gifts, big and small, to help us achieve the goodness in our lives."

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