Being grateful takes work

Trust me, I am well aware of how lucky I am. I live in a nice house with a loving, dedicated and supportive husband. I have a job that I love. I enjoy the foods I eat, and I have food to eat. But it’s so easy to get caught up in the routine, the everyday “boringness”, that I fail to notice all the good things around me.

A few months ago I tried to exercise gratitude. My goal was to write down 3 things that I was grateful for every night. And sometimes it was something amazing that happened, or that I did, or that I learned. But sometimes it was peanut butter or bacon – well, I guess those are amazing too.

I think that it’s a great exercise. Life has a tendency to sneak up on you and mess up your plans, so I did fall off the gratefulness wagon. But I believe that everyone should have some sort of mechanism to remind them of the greatness and beauty that surround them. It’s so easy to just get used to all the great things we have/see/enjoy and take them for granted, and only pay attention to the bad stuff.

Sometimes it’s not easy for me. I “run out” of things to notice. I don’t live a very exciting life; I am a homebody, I treasure silence, and honestly I don’t like getting out much especially in the winter. So I end up going back to the same old things over and over.

I think that people who have more active and exciting lives might have an easier time noticing things, just because they have more/different experiences. My “good things” are very focused on me and my personal life, so I don’t generally include things like “peace on earth” and “red pandas”. Although I guess red pandas should definitely be on the list. 😉

This entire “blog” is an exercise for me. Not necessarily for gratitude – it’s meant to be a way for me to keep track of my life so that family and friends know that I’m still alive an kicking, and what I’m up to. But I’m also finding that once I start to write about a topic, I open up to it. I start unraveling the whys and the hows and getting deeper into my own self. It helps me understand myself better. It helps me understand the world better. And it helps me notice more things that I should be grateful for. Or fight for. Or change. Or accept.

I’m glad I’m doing this, and I don’t know how long I’ll keep it up for. But I’m grateful for it.

3 things I’m grateful for today:
– This blog
– Kindle books
– Red pandas