Gratitude is more than saying “thank you” when someone gives you something, states Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD.

Gratitude, in Kushner’s view, is a mindset and a way of looking at the world so that you recognize the things in your life as gifts you might just as easily not have been given. It encourages you to see the “givens” in your life – your looks, your talents, your family – as gifts, and even if you might have wished for a fancier or more expensive gift, it is selfish not to express appreciation for the gifts you have, states Kushner in an interview.

“When the psalmist, a man who has known the “valley of the shadow,” writes “my cup runneth over,” he is saying that he has learned to be grateful for what he has rather than lamenting what he may have lost or missed out on,” says Rabbi Kushner.