Gratitude

Now that we've had some time to recover from the pressure of Thanksgiving, I'm going to talk about gratitude. I have something of a confession to make: I write a daily gratitude. OMGCHEESY, right? It is an awfully reverent thing for an irreverent person to do, certainly! It seems that daily gratitudes are contagious; I had a friend who did them faithfully, and I found I really enjoyed reading them and often thought that I should do them, but, like people do, I never could bring myself to actually DO it.

Then the day came that I was finally sucked into Facebook, domain of the not-very-net-savvy, mostly because I wanted to make a genuine effort to connect with my extended family and let them get to know me for who I really am. Of course, Facebook has a pretty limited space to type, so I had to think about something I could do that would be short but revealing, without, hopefully, being too offensive (as, for example, some humor can be.) I remembered my friend, and my desire to emulate her, and realized that this was my perfect opportunity.

Here's the thing. Daily gratitudes actually work! It's a subtle thing, but a very, very real one. If I go a few days without them, now that I've got a well established habit going on, I feel it. My mood dips, my tolerance for others goes down. I start losing sight of the things that are really important to me. When I do them, there is, even on the worst day, a portion of goodness to feed my soul. Corny, but true.

Looking back over my past year, I've been grateful for everything from "the incredible edible egg" to the chance to correct a mistake to my spouse and children and much, much more. We spend a lot of time looking for inspiration, for reasons to keep going through the bad times, and daily gratitudes are someone one can do for oneself that very much provides exactly that.

So, what are YOU grateful for?