Once President Roosevelt’s house was broken into and lots of things were stolen. Hearing this, one of Roosevelt’s friends wrote to him and advised him not to take it to his heart so much. President Roosevelt wrote back immediately, saying: “Dear friend, thank you for your letter to comfort me, I am all right now. I think I should thank God. This is because of the following three reasons: firstly, the thief only stole things from me but did not hurt me at all; secondly, the thief has stolen some of my things instead of all my things; thirdly, most luckily for me, it was the man rather than me who became a thief.”

It is certainly unlucky for anyone to be stolen from. However, President Roosevelt had three reasons to be grateful. This story tells us we should learn to be grateful in our life.

Most people agree that being grateful is important if we are to have a positive life. Being grateful makes we see the bright side of life that turns us into positive people.

Unfortunately, we often look at what we don’t have instead of what we have, and we end up complaining instead of being grateful. Do you know what the enemy of being grateful is? The enemy of being grateful is taking something for granted. Taking something for granted makes we forget how miserable it would be if we didn’t have it.

Sometimes we need to experience a loss to be able to appreciate what we have.

I don’t know about you, but I would better not wait until that happens; we should learn to appreciate the things we have without first experiencing a loss.

Everyone wants to live a joyful life. But how can we achieve it? How can we live a joyful life despite the not-so-good things that occasionally happen in our life?

An important key, I believe, is being a grateful person. If you are grateful, you will see the world differently. You will see that there are always good things behind everything that happen. You will realize that your life is wonderful, and you will be joyful.