Many people who order their lives rightly in all other ways are kept in poverty by their lack of gratitude.
Interpretation
Gratitude is essential for a fulfilling life, and its absence can lead to a sense of poverty despite other successes.
Wallace D. Wattles suggests that gratitude is a vital component of a well-ordered life. Even if individuals appear successful in various aspects, the absence of gratitude can lead to feelings of deprivation and dissatisfaction. True wealth encompasses appreciation and recognition of what one has, and neglecting gratitude can hinder true prosperity and fulfillment.
In practice
In a speech about personal development, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of gratitude.
In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy. It is necessary, then, to cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.
You want to get rich in order that you may surround yourself with beautiful things, see distant lands, feed your mind, and develop your intellect; in order that you may love others and do kind things, and be able to play a good part in helping the world to find truth.
Whatever you habitually think yourself to be, that you are. You must form, now, a greater and better habit; you must form a conception of yourself as a being of limitless power, and habitually think that you are that being. It is the habitual, not the periodical thought that decides your destiny.
That which makes you want more money is the same as that which makes the plant grow; it is life seeking fuller expression.
Never look at the visible supply; always look at the limitless riches in the formless substance and know that they are coming to you as fast as you can receive and use them.
The man who gives way to anger, or hatred, or any other passion, cannot work; he only breaks himself to pieces, and does nothing practical. It is the calm, forgiving, equable, well-balanced mind that does the greatest amount of work.
When we make mistakes, we can use the process of NVC mourning and self-forgiveness to show us where we can grow instead of getting caught up in moralistic self-judgments.
I always remember an epitaph which is in the cemetery at Tombstone, Arizona. It says: 'Here lies Jack Williams. He done his damnedest.' I think that is the greatest epitaph a man can have - When he gives everything that is in him to do the job he has before him. That is all you can ask of him and that is what I have tried to do.
For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it.
Inside every seventy-year-old is a thirty-five-year-old asking, 'What happened?
Genius is rare because the means of becoming one have not been available
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