Hello!
ICYMI: Last week, I kicked off a four-part series of my favorite lists. The first one was the list I write in the upper right corner of every journal entry.
Now we go to the upper left corner!
In this space, I write “Thankful for” or “Grateful for” or “Blessed”. Then I close my eyes, replay my day in my mind’s eye, and, a la Dumbledore siphoning thoughts from his mind, draw out three things I’m thankful for that day and write them down in bullets.
This practice – scientifically proven to improve happiness & well-being – is called Three Good Things.1
Also more boringly called a Gratitude List.
Some time ago, I came across a writer, someone who also writes his TGT daily, who shared how he sometimes felt the pressure to keep coming up with new things to be thankful for. I mean we all know life, for most of us, can often feel like a string of the same, tiresome days. Perhaps this is how one’s TGT might play out: I’m thankful for my mac and cheese dinner. Which was leftover from yesterday’s lunch, which is also what I wrote on my list.
The writer couldn’t help but wonder: if he were truly grateful, shouldn’t he be able to find better, more novel things?
Then he realized there was no need to succumb to that pressure. Because gratitude, he argued, “is not a creativity exercise. It’s a gratitude exercise.”
Hmm.
I get where he’s coming from. I probably write my dog’s name in my TGT 4 out of 7 days (a much-deserved spot, as we can all agree). But for the most part, what I love about this exercise is how it gives me the chance to comb through my day, think hard and really notice something new or specific I’m thankful for. Today, I’m not just thankful for “work”, not even the “Strategy team”. I’m particularly thankful for “Bea”. Tomorrow I’ll be grateful for “Ivan”. The following day I’ll feel blessed to have been able to enjoy yet again the “free cereals in the pantry” or that “cozy, well-lit corner of the office”.
So, yeah, fine: Gratitude may not strictly be a game of creativity. But it is a game of mindfulness. It’s about stretching your ability to pay attention, to look within and without, to see the same thing with new eyes, to draw out the details of your life and grasp how no moment, no step, no act nor insight is too small. It’s about putting up the minutiae of life against the light and seeing it for what it is: beautiful, meaningful, substantial.
For a practice that costs me practically nothing besides two minutes of my time, I’ve found its return to myself to be tenfold. It’s given me an abiding sense of positivity and abundance. Undeniable proof of the goodness of the world. A doorstop to taking things for granted. An incessant reminder that, indeed, as the poet W.B. Yeats put it, “The world is full of beautiful things, just waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
If you missed last week’s list:
The Three Good Things exercise was created by Dr. Martin Seligman. Here’s a short video of him explaining it himself.