Giving Thanks

I love this time of year–not only because the weather finally starts to cool off (which is a very big deal, in south Texas), but also because our focus seems to shift when the days get shorter. We turn inward. We stay indoors more often because it’s dark outside. We turn our attention to The Bigger Questions. Things like “Why is it so easy to take for granted all the things I should be grateful for every single day?”

I wish I had an answer to that question, but I don’t. In this excellent piece, Nadia Bolz Weber suggests that it’s because we’re so busy focusing on how we want things to be, we stop paying attention to how wonderful things often are. That’s as good an explanation as any, when it comes to human nature.

But I’ve been making an effort to change that. Last year about this time, I downloaded a free app called Gratitude Journal. It is, as the name suggests, an app that allows you to keep track of the good things in your life. I have mine set up to nudge me, every evening, with the question: “What are you grateful for?” Below the box where I answer that question is the statement “Yes, I am grateful.” It’s a simple little thing, but for a few minutes every single day, it forces me to think about gratitude.

There have been a handful of days when I dismissed the app’s prompt without thinking about what I was doing and, as a result, forgot to make a journal entry. And some days, I’ll be honest, it’s hard to come up with something to write down. But when I get stuck, I look through previous entries in the journal as a way to jog my brain. It’s always possible to come up with something to give thanks for, even if I have to work at it a little bit–and the things for which I’m grateful are often very small, which is a good reminder in itself. Gratitude doesn’t always have to focus on the big picture. It can narrow down and focus on the tiny corners of our lives.

Here are just a handful of things I’ve been grateful for this year:

1. A whole weekend with both of my kids.
2. The ability to afford extensive dental work.
3. A chance to say goodbye.
4. Friends who will be honest with me, even if I don’t like what they say.
5. Rain after a long period of drought.
6. Good hair products, after so many years of frizz and Dippity Do.
7. A new member of the fur family.
8. A movie date with my love.
9. Weather cool enough for long walks outside (for the first time in months!)
10. Sunshine breaking through clouds after a big storm.
11. Taco Cabana happy hour.
12. Clear thinking and the time to do good work.
13. Dinner and time to catch up with an old friend

You get the idea. Nothing revolutionary, but I wrap up every day with a small moment of being grateful–which is far better than ending the day focused on everything that went wrong and afraid that things will never turn out the way I want them to.

With Thanksgiving on the horizon next week, the thought of giving thanks  isn’t too far from anyone’s mind. But the challenge I’ve set for myself is to feel grateful every day–not just on Thanksgiving. If you’re ready to give yourself that same challenge, why not try Gratitude Journal as a way of getting started?