I too find it hard to be thankful when things aren't going the way I want. It seems to me he should be whining, like Martha Beef, or, I mean Veal. He adds that the forces that will bring this about are the prayers of the Philippian Christians and God's work through the Holy Spirit. Habakkuk had a similar faith. Or like a deer, standing on a mountain top he has a high vantage-point for viewing life.
Some people magnify their losses and find reasons for constant complaints.
Others magnify their plusses and find reason for gratitude and hope. Viktor Frankl discovered in the Nazi concentration camp that the one freedom no one could take away from him was the freedom to determine for himself the attitude he would maintain toward life and thereby his sense of well-being. He chose to magnify the plusses and found the ability to do so through imaginary conversations with his wife and through his faith. He observed later that those who survived the concentration camps were mainly those who found the strength to magnify the plusses of their existence. The early pilgrims who celebrated their good harvest in 1621 acknowledged God's hand in their new abundance and at the same time the help they had received from Indians, such as Squanto, who gave them grain that would grow in rocky soil and showed them how to cook game and local vegetables.