Long, long ago in Boston, grazing and wandering cows
walked the easiest paths they could find and, with each
passing cow, these paths became more clearly defined
and easier to follow. These cow paths became the "plan"

for Boston's streets.

Fritz says, "As a result, city planning in Boston gravitates
around the mentality of the seventeenth century cow."

The thoughts that we have over and over form cow paths
in our brains. Each repeated thought makes the path more
defined and easier. We think about not enough money
frequently and the not-enough-money path becomes the
easiest one to follow -- our thoughts just follow the same
old cow path. Same with thoughts of sickness and irritability
and judgment and all breeds and brands of scarcity.

Perhaps your thought planning gravitates around the
mentality of the old twentieth century you.

Once those cow paths get formed, they call to our
thoughts, and lead them to places where our dreams
can't be seen. Our brains are riddled with deep furrows
meandering through hard, caked, crusted dirt. How do we
loosen up the dirt into pliable, rich, fertile mud? We need
to rain on our brain.

Mud, Marvelous Mud

Gratitude is the rain that smoothes the way for new
paths. When the storms of gratitude fall upon our
brains, the dry, stuck paths dissolve leaving the mighty,
moldable mud of potential. We can form new paths
where our thoughts can dance on down the new grooves
of health, wealth, love, and creativity.

Gratitude and rigidity cannot coexist. Gratitude makes
new freeways of thinking gently possible. Have you
ever found yourself thinking over and over about
something you do not want in your life? That's a
sure way to get more and more of that something.
You probably know that, but all of a sudden you catch
yourself having those thoughts - again - of what you
most definitely do not want.

Why? Your thoughts are following those old,
well-worn, rigid cow paths in your brain.
They follow those cow trails while you are
not looking. And it does not work to put
roadblocks in the paths, to resist those thoughts.
You have to build new roads, create new paths.

Feeling gratitude will smooth out the landscape
so you can create the new paths. Replace the
thoughts of sickness with thoughts of health,
poverty thoughts with wealth thoughts, dread
thoughts with dream thoughts. You can then build
with your thoughts the health highways and
wealth byways and love lanes and self-express-ways.

Singing In The Rain

And we know that once your thoughts are
following the new paths, the health and wealth
and love and self-expression will manifest
openly and freely in your life.

Let the feeling of gratitude rain and reign in your
life. It will shower you with pleasures and treasures.
It will let you see how you are a mighty, shining
raindrop in the great rainfall of the good universe.
Let "thank you" be your prayer that you sing in the rain.

Gratitude Push-up

Before you go to bed, think of an incident that
happened to you during the day. Any incident.
It can be as simple as eating breakfast or
walking the dog or talking to a coworker. Write
the incident as if you were putting it in your
memoirs or journal or autobiography.
And do it this way . . .

When you write about the incident, revise it so
it includes your having a LARGE amount of
gratitude during the incident. How? As you
think about the incident before you write,
feel the gratitude flowing into the memory.
Feel yourself full of thanks. See a smile.
Maybe feel a bounce in your step, peace in
your shoulders, joy in your posture. Then write
the incident in this revised version. Don't worry
about good style or grammar or punctuation.
Simply write it.

Do this exercise for a week with a new incident
from each day. I think you will be surprised at
what happens to your level of gratitude
during those seven days.