Lessons in Gratitude

I must confess to being really tired this evening, so apologies in advance for any lack of coherence on my part and for the potential brevity of tonight’s post. The last two days before I’ve written this blog I’ve played my guitar. I figure that means that I just started a new streak and am up to two days in a row. Tonight I will go for three straight days of “doing” music in some form or another. I don’t want to limit myself to my guitar, but want to broaden to include my flutes and other instruments I have. It represents my desire to get back to doing creative things with my time, and while writing this blog is a creative endeavor, playing my guitar and singing or playing my flutes draws on a different part of me than writing this blog or my morning journal writing. Creativity is a renewable resource, a virtually inexhaustible font. It’s a bit like gratitude: the more you offer it, the more there is to offer.

Tonight I have a request of all of you who read this blog. It is a pretty selfish request and one you could choose to ignore, though I hope you won’t. If you read this blog, even if it’s just this one today, please write a comment below. It can be as simple as, “Yes, I read it.” On some days I write for myself and for my own need to remind myself of the many positive things that surround me that cause me to be grateful. On some days I write out of habit. But on most days I am writing for the reader, because I want to share my thoughts with someone and know that someone is “out there” reading and connecting with what I am saying. Like many humans, I want to know that my words are being read and that, by extension, I am being known and in some way validated. I want to know that I am seen.

It has been quite a challenge to write every day on the same subject for nearly a year (I took a brief break after day 227, so have written 324 straight days.) I am grateful and a bit surprised to still be doing it. And egoic part of me says I must keep writing because my “fans” are depending on me. There is a small handful of people whom I know read this blog every day, some of whom have read every single one of the 552 posts (I posted two gratitude journals on one day, on August 8, 2012, when I was feeling particularly grateful…) My hope when I sit down to write each night–once I get past simply trying to write something that is coherent and even remotely interesting–is that I provide food for thought, inspiration, a bit of humor perhaps. But mostly my objective is to get you, the reader, to think about the things in your life for which you are grateful and/or to learn a little from my experiences and appreciation for the blessings in my life and begin with great intention and purpose to begin to express gratitude for the blessings in yours.

If you read this blog, please take a moment to comment below. Again, you can write as little as a word or two or as much as you want about whatever value you might have gained from reading it. It’ll help give me a little motivation and focus for continuing to write on a daily basis. And now, I’m off to play my guitar for a few minutes. Thank you for being here, thank you for reading. Thank you.

It was a dark and stormy night. All fake novels begin with this line, but here it is a dark rainy night, a fitting companion to the dark, gray day it was from sunup to sundown. I am grateful this evening for having had clear thinking space today. Thinking is one of those occupations that doesn’t get a lot of credit.  Often, we get rewarded for what we produce–physical, tangible manifestations of our creative thinking. Oh you can trace some of my thinking by looking at the papers that were scattered across my desk at work, covered with diagrams and boxes and arrows and lots and lots of text. Right now much of my thinking is confined to such diagrams and documents and plans; little of it has yet been brought to life through action and implementation. Once it begins to bear fruit, then all that thinking will have practical value.

I am grateful for the privilege of having gotten an education. For so many people, going to college is a luxury; in my family it was an expectation. Each of us–my five siblings and I–was pushed to go as far in school as circumstances allowed and not only attend college but excel in it. And as each of us would finish one degree, our parents–mom in particular–was nudging us toward the next degree. I can remember hearing my mother telling someone that after I finished my masters degree I was moving on to my PhD. I remember thinking at the time that as a struggling masters student, I had neither the will nor the desire to pursue a doctorate. But eventually, pursue it I did, and finally caught it. Of course it doesn’t necessarily mean that I am any smarter than anyone else; it simply means that I am persistent and work hard.  That, and I am a good thinker.

Now one might suggest that being grateful for thinking is a little silly. To which I have a couple of responses. First: you try writing a gratitude blog for 549 days and see if occasionally you don’t find yourself expressing gratitude for something a little out of the ordinary like thinking. Second: I do not take my ability to think for granted. To be able to put thoughts and ideas together into sentences and have those sentences make sense, or to be able to conceptualize or imagine something that has yet to be created and to verbalize those things in a speech, or any of a million different combinations of thought and action is to experience the miraculous over and over again throughout the course of a single day. People who have suffered traumatic brain injuries, who wish they could effortlessly speak simple sentences, understand basic commands, or remember their children’s names, would envy me my ability to think. How many parents of differently-abled children agonize over their child’s struggle to make meaning of the most basic concepts or to verbalize their thoughts and ideas?

There are so very many aspects of life that I take for granted if I am not mindful enough to see them for the blessings they are. I am incredibly grateful for being able to move, breath, speak, act with relative ease and without having to think about it. Every once in a while I get dissatisfied with where my life is headed; there is more that I feel like I can and should be doing with myself, and I get frustrated. But then I calm myself down and realize that my task for now is to do my best thinking, put forward my best effort, give fully of myself where I am in each moment to whatever or whomever is in front of me. That is my highest purpose. So for now I will content myself with thinking about how to approach the important issues and challenges that are right in front of me and will be grateful for the opportunity. May it always be so.

This has been a long, tiring day, the kind where, in spite of my efforts to turn it, was pretty dismal. I’ve had a few of those this week, which is a little disappointing, but am hopeful I can pull the nose up and come in for a smooth landing tomorrow. A while ago I was trying to come up with a new metaphor for how I’ve been feeling for the last little bit. For much of the latter half of 2012 I spoke about taking rides on Mephistopheles the mechanical bull–that my life was crazy and unpredictable, and as Mephisto tossed me up in the air, spun me around, wheeling this way and that trying to unseat me, sending me sailing through the air to land in a heap. Most days I mastered Mephisto, holding on for dear life with one hand while my free hand swung wildly in the air, while I rode out the wild eight seconds required before sailing carefully through the air and landing on my feet or tucking and rolling myself up into a standing position.

Life these days isn’t a ride on the mechanical bull that it was a few months ago–it has evened out a little bit in terms of it’s relative stability and predictability–but it remains a bumpy and unsettled ride. I would shift to a nautical metaphor–one that involves storms and choppy seas before things calm and smooth sailing commences. But sailing metaphors are overdone, whereas the mechanical bull is at least novel. Perhaps I will noodle on my new metaphor while I rest tonight and allow my brain to work on it subconsciously. When I get it, of course I will report it here.

I am grateful for a number of things tonight–most of which I can’t remember at the moment. They are relatively small for the most part. The biggest blessings I received today was the benefit of talking to one of my sisters as I navigated my way home through my evening commute. As I started the drive home I tried listening to music, which often lifts my spirits, but it wasn’t working. I flipped through the rolodex in my head thinking about who I could call and tell about my icky day. This is big for me. Normally, I would keep my feelings to myself and not reach out to anyone. But I found myself wondering, “Who can I talk to? Who can I tell about this?” I felt a bit like Alexander who had the “Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.” Perhaps mine didn’t rise quite to that level, but it was a challenging day to be sure. I was glad to be able to tell my sister at least some of the angst I was experiencing and get advice from her simply about how to manage it.

As the basest level, I needed to hear a kind voice and I got what I needed from my dear sister. I must confess to having had a very brief moment of wishing I could call my mother, who’s been dead for nearly 18 years. It wasn’t that mom always knew the right thing to say about everything, it was simply that at that moment I simply wanted her to be alive again and be available to tell me I will be alright (even though I already know that I am.)

I am grateful to be at the end of the not totally terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Tomorrow is indeed another day and I begin anew with a fresh set of 24 hours and additional mercies and grace of god. It always amazes me that even on days like this, even the slightest glimmer of gratitude still shines through and I am able to find words for it to write into this blog. May this continue to be true.

I’m grateful for many things every day. And over the previous 542 blogs a number of themes have emerged as I’ve written. Sometimes it’s gratitude for the practice itself—the daily ritual of sitting down and reflecting on the blessings that surround and infuse my life every single day. I gain such value from the simple exercise of exploring the experiences of a given day and from that selecting one or two things that I want to publicly express gratitude for. During the course of a day something will happen or I’ll see something beautiful or I will have an interaction with a person and my heart floods with thankfulness. Often by the end of the day I don’t even write about half the things I that occur throughout it.

Tonight is one for simple gratitude—this is one of those nights when I don’t have anything particularly profound to say other than to express my thanks for simple, everyday things.

I am grateful for everyone who reads or has read this blog at least once. You are a large reason why I keep writing. I am not famous—I don’t have dozens of followers on Twitter and hundreds of people who read this blog on a daily basis. But whether you are a faithful, daily reader or someone who reads it periodically or stumbled across it by accident and may not read it again, you have taken a few precious moments of your time to think about gratitude and perhaps consider briefly the blessings in your life for which you are grateful.

It has been a funny side effect of writing this blog that after some posts a family member or friend will call. “Are you alright? I didn’t like the way you sounded in today’s blog.” It makes me smile and does my heart good at the same time. It’s been interesting making one’s struggles public, as I did through much of last year. But I’ve heard from some folks that watching me work through various dramas and traumas in my life, navigating them with a grateful heart, has helped them deal with some of the issues in their own lives. I can’t think of anything better than that.

I don’t know how long I’ll keep writing; there are times when I feel like I’ve said all I can say. I will be grateful every day of my life, especially now that I’ve really started paying attention to it. My capacity to write about it in new and interesting ways will quit long before the feeling will wane. In the meantime, I’ll keep posting. Each day brings new blessings and new opportunities to say thank you for them. So, thank you!