Venice Woman Thanks Restaurant: 30 Days Of Gratitude

VENICE, CA — Barbara Schnekluth has a special reason to feel grateful and has a thank you for a business in town.

She recently celebrated her friend's departure from California for New Jersey at the Cheesecake Factory.

"Thank you Cheesecake Factory for making my friend's leaving California to live near her daughter in New Jersey a memorable occasion!"

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 Unviersity 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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