Thought of the Day: If the only prayer you ever say…

November 18, 2025

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is ‘thank you,’ it will be enough.” — Meister Eckhart

There’s a special kind of wisdom in a line like this. It hits softly, like someone tapping you on the shoulder to remind you of something you already knew but forgot the moment life got loud. And life does get loud. Between work, kids, exhaustion, and the daily “what on earth am I supposed to be doing right now?” moments, it’s easy to slip into autopilot and forget to notice anything at all.

But “thank you” pulls you back.

Not the big, performative thank yous. Not the ones where you’re standing in a banquet hall clapping for someone with a microphone. I’m talking about the small thank yous—the ones no one hears but you.

Thank you for this cup of coffee that tastes exactly how I hoped it would.

Thank you for a kid’s laughter drifting down the hallway.

Thank you for the one traffic light that stayed green long enough to keep me from losing my mind.

Thank you for a moment of quiet nobody scheduled.

As I get older, gratitude feels less like a nice idea and more like a survival skill. Life doesn’t necessarily get harder with age, it just gets fuller. And when a life gets full, the small things matter a whole lot more. Gratitude is how we keep from drowning in the busy. It’s how we recognize that even on the days when everything is a mess, something, some little thing,is still good.

Eckhart said “thank you” is enough, and I think it’s because gratitude forces us to admit we didn’t do everything ourselves. It softens the ego. It cracks open the door for humility, for awareness, for connection. It’s almost like saying “thank you” is really saying, “I see this. I didn’t miss it.”

I don’t want to miss my life. And honestly, I’ve missed enough of it already.

There are days I rush through, days I forget to breathe, days when gratitude is the last thing on my mind because my mind is too busy trying to put out fires or break up arguments or figure out why my iPad is misbehaving again. But even on those days, the smallest thank you changes the temperature of the whole room, at least on the inside.

And maybe that’s the point.

We spend so much time chasing big things, big goals, big wins, big meaning. But when you zoom all the way out, it’s the accumulation of tiny, ordinary moments that shape a life. Gratitude is how we mark them, how we name them, how we keep them from washing past us.

So today, my Thought of the Day is a reminder to pause, even briefly, and say the easiest prayer in the world: thank you.

For what? Anything. Everything. Something.

It will be enough.

🧠 Read the full blog post where I explore this Thought of the Day and the Question of the Day

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