Originally published January 13, 2022 , updated on August 22, 2024

There’s always talk about showing gratitude or noting what you are personally grateful for. Especially at the start of the year, people start gratitude journals or gratitude jars in which they note the things that they are grateful for. Reflecting on these helps to highlight how far you have come. That’s what international best-selling author Don Williams has done with his new book, Gratitude: Stories From Our Hearts. 

In the book, Don has shared heartwarming stories from his friends. In these stories, his friends detail what they have gone through or experienced to witness the power of gratitude. Raj Goodman Anand, CEO and founder of Goodman Lantern, is one of the contributors to this book. 

Gratitude in Life of Raj

In his chapter, Raj notes what brought him gratitude and when he experienced the strongest waves of it. It was in 2016 when he and his wife moved to London. What should have been a celebratory occasion was soon marred with personal strife. They were not yet fully unpacked when Raj’s wife discovered that she had breast cancer. 

What followed was one of the toughest roads that Raj and his family have ever had to walk. There was the trauma of the initial discovery, the mastectomy that followed, many rounds of chemo, the hair loss, and the massive emotional struggles that came with fighting the disease. 

Through these times, they celebrated small victories. When sitting up without help wasn’t tough on his wife, it was a good day. When chocolate cake actually tasted like chocolate cake, it was a good day. Tiny celebrations of gratitude every day – and his wife’s fighting spirit – is what got them through it all. 

In the book, Raj goes into more detail about this period of his life and how it helped him to develop this good attitude. You can read more about Raj’s story and others by purchasing Gratitude: Stories From Our Hearts here.

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