The one thing you need to do to be a thankful person …

George Mikes tells an eye-opening story in one of his books that reveals the one thing you need to do to be a thankful person. The story is about an unhappy man …

In Budapest, a man goes to a rabbi and complains, “Life is unbearable! There are nine of us living in one room. What can I do?”

The rabbi answers, “Take your goat into the room with you.”

The man was incredulous, but the rabbi insists. “Do as I say and come back in a week.”

A week later the man comes back looking more distraught than before.

“We cannot stand it!” he tells the rabbi. “The goat is filthy.”

The rabbi then tells him, “Go home and let the goat out. And come back in a week.”

A radiant man returns to the rabbi a week later, exclaiming, “Life is beautiful! We enjoy every minute of it now that there’s no goat — only the nine of us.”

In order for this man to see all that he had to be thankful for already, his life had to become worse. In order for him to become a thankful person, all he needed to do was open his eyes to the life he had; he didn’t do that until the addition of the goat messed up everything!

Many people today are like this man, unhappy with life and complaining about it, but missing entirely the blessings God has sprinkled throughout it.

How about you? Can you see a life worth being thankful for? Or are you unhappy and complaining, in spite of many and various blessings already embedded in your life?

Scotty