On June 30, 2011, I wrote the first of these Lessons in Gratitude (Day One). I’m not sure I ever wrote down why I decided to call them “lessons,” I suppose I figured that there were things I was learning from my focusing on gratitude. I’d created the blog site, “Consider This…” for my coaching and consulting business, but had never used it for anything. So it provided the platform for this journey into gratefulness that has become a two and a half year odyssey. As I described in that first post, I had no real idea where this was going to lead me:
…for some reason today it hit me: I really am grateful for so many things, including those mundane things I am privileged to think of as mundane–like clean water to drink and something that makes my clean water cold. I am facing some challenges in my life right now but those challenges are far outweighed by the number of things I am grateful for. So, I am challenging myself to write every day about at least one thing I am grateful for. Not a list of things, but one thing (or more) that I’m grateful for and why. I’m not sure how long I can sustain it, or if I’ll write a public blog every day or simply write it in my journal. But, I am challenging myself nonetheless. All those people who recommend doing this can’t be wrong. There’s simply nothing to lose by doing this.
Nothing to lose indeed, and everything to gain. It is remarkable how much I have grown because of the daily practice of gratitude. Even in the midst of incredibly trying circumstances, when my heart felt like it was breaking from the pain and confusion I was experiencing in my life in the first few months I wrote the blog, something inside of me welled up every day and I found something–many things–that made my life worthwhile and worth living for. Every single day, no matter how hard that day might have been, I exercised my gratitude muscle and wrote publicly what I was grateful for.
I am grateful to “whatever gods may be, for my unconquerable soul,” as the poem Invictus reads. The poem speaks to the determination to withstand the “bludgeonings of chance” and remain whole and strong. There were many days when I cried and wasn’t sure how I was going to get out of the circumstances in which I found myself and maintain a sense of  equanimity and mental and emotional wellbeing. Gratitude was the anchor that kept me from drifting into depression and hopelessness. The practice of gratitude each day gave me a structure, provided me with much-needed discipline in my life just then. As I contemplate my “what’s next” regarding my writing, blogging, and self expression, I have no idea what will provide the new structure and discipline to keep me on a good trajectory, but if past history is any clue, the Universe will give me the direction as I stay open to its leading.
I have learned so many important lessons from my reflections on gratitude over these 800-plus days. I am grateful for the many lessons learned from the difficulties I encountered as well as the blessings, and from the people who supported and encouraged me along the way. I do not know where the road will lead after I’ve posted this blog for the “last” time in the next few days, what I do know is that it will be paved with gratitude. And that is a most beautiful thing.
