Thanks to Good Luck

The book The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want describes experiments showing that people will be happier if they think about the things in life they are grateful for.  But what if you are grateful for something and there is nobody to thank?  What if good things happened to you, but it was just luck?  Are you still being "grateful" when you celebrate good luck and there is nobody you can thank?

For me, it feels the same.  I get a positive feeling when I thank my wife for a wonderful dinner.  But I got a similar feeling when I was walking the dogs yesterday morning and I saw rays of sunlight cutting through fog to light up a red maple tree.  I was glad that I happened to be there to see that.  Noticing the good things around me, even if I just got lucky, even if there is nobody I can thank, still feels to me like an exercise in cultivating gratitude.