you know about me, something very personal,

and there is something I know about

every one of you

and that's very central to your concerns.

There is something that we know

about everyone we meet anywhere in the world,

on the street,

that is the very mainspring

of whatever they do

and whatever they put up with,

and that is that all of us

want to be happy.

In this, we are all together.

How we imagine our happiness,

that differs from one another,

but it's already a lot that we have all in common,

that we want to be happy.

Now my topic is gratefulness.

How is the connection between

happiness and gratefulness?

Many people would say, well, that's very easy.

When you are happy, you are grateful.

But think again.

Is it really the happy people that are grateful?

We all know quite a number of people

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.

And we all know people

who have lots of misfortune,

misfortune that we ourselves would not want to have,

and they are deeply happy.

They radiate happiness. You are surprised.

Why? Because they are grateful.

So it is not happiness that makes us grateful.

It's gratefulness that makes us happy.

If you think it's happiness that makes you grateful,

think again.

It's gratefulness that makes you happy.

Now, we can ask,

what really do we mean by gratefulness?

And how does it work?

I appeal to your own experience.

We all know from experience how it goes.

We experience something

that's valuable to us.

Something is given to us that's valuable to us.

And it's really given.

These two things have to come together.

It has to be something valuable,

and it's a real gift.

You haven't bought it. You haven't earned it.

You haven't traded it in. You haven't worked for it.

It's just given to you.

And when these two things come together,

something that's really valuable to me

and I realize it's freely given,

then gratefulness spontaneously

rises in my heart,

happiness spontaneously rises in my heart.

That's how gratefulness happens.

Now the key to all this is that

we cannot only experience this once in a while.

We cannot only have grateful experiences.

We can be people who live gratefully.

Grateful living, that is the thing.

And how can we live gratefully?

By experiencing, by becoming aware

that every moment is a given moment, as we say.

It's a gift. You haven't earned it.

You haven't brought it about in any way.

You have no way of assuring that there will be

another moment given to you,

and yet, that's the most valuable thing

that can ever be given to us,

this moment, with all the opportunity that it contains.

If we didn't have this present moment,

we wouldn't have any opportunity to do anything

or experience anything,

and this moment is a gift.

It's a given moment, as we say.

Now, we say the gift within this gift

is really the opportunity.

What you are really grateful for is the opportunity,

not the thing that is given to you,

because if that thing were somewhere else

and you didn't have the opportunity to enjoy it,

to do something with it,

you wouldn't be grateful for it.

Opportunity is the gift within every gift,

and we have this saying,

opportunity knocks only once.

Well, think again.

Every moment is a new gift, over and over again,

and if you miss the opportunity of this moment,

another moment is given to us, and another moment.

We can avail ourselves of this opportunity,

or we can miss it,

and if we avail ourselves of the opportunity,

it is the key to happiness.

Behold the master key to our happiness

in our own hands.

Moment by moment,

we can be grateful for this gift.

Does that mean

that we can be grateful for everything?

Certainly not.

We cannot be grateful for violence, for war,

for oppression, for 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 said we can be grateful in every given moment

for the opportunity,

and even when we are confronted

with something that is terribly difficult,

we can rise to this occasion

and respond to the opportunity that is given to us.

It isn't as bad as it might seem.

Actually, when you look at it and experience it,

you find that most of the time, what is given to us

is opportunity to enjoy,

and we only miss it because

we are rushing through life

and we are not stopping to see the opportunity.

But once in a while,

something very difficult is given to us,

and when this difficult thing occurs to us,

it's a challenge to rise to that opportunity,

and we can rise to it by learning something

which is sometimes painful.

Learning patience, for instance.

We have been told that the road to peace

is not a sprint,

but is more like a marathon.

That takes patience. That's difficult.

It may be to stand up for your opinion,

to stand up for your conviction.

That's an opportunity that is given to us.

To learn, to suffer, to stand up,

all these opportunities are given to us,

but they are opportunities,

and those who avail themselves

of those opportunities

are the ones that we admire.

They make something out of life.

And those who fail get another opportunity.

We always get another opportunity.

That's the wonderful richness of life.

So how can we find a method

that will harness this?

How can each one of us find a method

for living gratefully,

not just once in a while being grateful,

but moment by moment to be grateful.

How can we do it?

It's a very simple method.

It's so simple that it's actually what we were told

as children when we learned to cross the street.

Stop. Look. Go.

That's all.

But how often do we stop?

We rush through life. We don't stop.

We miss the opportunity because we don't stop.

We have to stop. We have to get quiet.

And we have to build stop signs

into our lives.

When I was in Africa some years ago

and then came back,

I noticed water.

In Africa where I was, I didn't have drinkable water.

Every time I turned on the faucet,

I was overwhelmed.

Every time I clicked on the light,

I was so grateful. It made me so happy.

But after a while, this wears off.

So I put little stickers on the light switch

and on the water faucet,

and every time I turned it on, water.

So leave it up to your own imagination.

You can find whatever works best for you,

but you need stop signs in your life.

And when you stop,

then the next thing is to look.

You look. You open your eyes.

You open your ears. You open your nose.

You open all your senses

for this wonderful richness that is given to us.

There is no end to it,

and that is what life is all about,

to enjoy, to enjoy what is given to us.

And then we can also open our hearts,

our hearts for the opportunities,

for the opportunities also to help others,

to make others happy, because nothing makes us more happy

than when all of us are happy.

And when we open our hearts to the opportunities,

the opportunities invite us to do something,

and that is the third.

Stop, look, and then go, and really do something.

And what we can do is

whatever life offers to you in that present moment.

Mostly it's the opportunity to enjoy,

but sometimes it's something more difficult.

But whatever it is, if we take this opportunity,

we go with it, we are creative,

those are the creative people,

and that little stop, look, go,

is such a potent seed

that it can revolutionize our world.

Because we need, we are at the present moment

in the middle of a change of consciousness,

and you will be surprised if you --

I am always surprised when I hear how many times

this word "gratefulness" and "gratitude" comes up.

Everywhere you find it,

a grateful airline, a restaurant gratefulness,

a cafe gratefulness, a wine that is gratefulness.

Yes, I have even come across a toilet paper

that the brand is called Thank You. (Laughter)

There is a wave of gratefulness because

people are becoming aware how important this is

and how this can change our world.

It can change our world

in immensely important ways,

because 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

and not of a sense of scarcity,

and you are willing to share.

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.

And it doesn't make for equality,

but it makes for equal respect,

and that is the important thing.

The future of the world will be a network,

not a pyramid, not a pyramid turned upside down.

The revolution of which I am speaking

is a nonviolent revolution,

and it's so revolutionary

that it even revolutionizes

the very concept of a revolution,

because a normal revolution is one

where the power pyramid is turned upside down

and those who were on the bottom are now on the top

and are doing exactly the same thing

that the ones did before.

What we need is a networking of smaller groups,

smaller and smaller groups who know one another,

who interact with one another,

and that is a grateful world.

A grateful world is a world of joyful people.

Grateful people are joyful people,

and joyful people,

the more and more joyful people there are,

the more and more we'll have a joyful world.