Introspection: Lessons in Gratitude

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Lessons in Gratitude

Give thanks in every situation because this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 (CEB)

Just open your eyes

Just open your eyes

And see that life is beautiful

From "Life Is Beautiful" by Sixx:A.M.

As I've written previously, I spent some time at the end of 2017 looking over my journal entries from the past year, and I noticed that I tend to lose sight of what's good in my life because I'm so focused on what's missing in my life.  I already knew that the remedy for my problem is gratitude, but, at the same time, I realized that I had done nothing to practice gratitude.  With that in mind, I made a New Year's resolution to become more grateful.  As a first step, I decided to make it a daily practice to record in my journal at least one thing for which I can be grateful.

We all know that we must consistently put our muscles to use if we want them to grow stronger.  I think that maybe the same can be said of gratitude, hence my daily practice.  I'm hoping that, by practicing gratitude daily, I will become more naturally inclined toward gratitude and become, as a result, a more happy person in general.

Having practiced gratitude daily for almost a month, I've learned a few lessons in gratitude.

I've remembered how important it is to be grateful for the ordinary things and to not take them for granted.  I'm grateful for good food, whether it's a meal I order at a nice restaurant downtown or leftover ham from Christmas.  I'm grateful for workdays that are not hectic.  I'm grateful for times when I find a table at a busy coffee shop.  I'm grateful to learn new routes to the places I want to go and for the online maps that make such opportunities possible.  I'm grateful for modern medicine, particularly the over-the-counter medications that give me relief from sinus headaches, which I experience rather often.  I'm grateful for the notes of encouragement my mother leaves me.

I've learned that part of practicing gratitude is taking the time to actually enjoy the things for which I should be grateful.  In my neck of the woods, there were some bitterly cold days this month.  As I drove to work on the morning after New Year's, I noticed on a bank sign that the temperature was eleven degrees Fahrenheit.  One week later, as I was leaving work for the day, I checked a weather app on my phone and saw that the temperature had risen to sixty-three degrees.¹  Thankful for the warmer weather, I realized that it would be a shame not to enjoy it, so I decided to go for a walk at a nearby park.

Practicing gratitude daily has given me the opportunity to learn about, in the words of St. Paul, "giv[ing] thanks in every situation."  Though I might not be thankful for the situation itself, I can look for reasons to be thankful in the midst of it.

On one Wednesday after work, I looked back on my day and had trouble coming up with reasons to be grateful.  It wasn't a particularly bad day, but I had plenty of reasons to complain.  I was tired all day; my shoulder muscles were sore, perhaps from tension; and my computer was giving me trouble.  I turned my attention to what I was doing at the moment.  I was grateful for places where I can sit with my computer and record my thoughts, like the bookstore cafe in which I found myself at the moment.  I was grateful for the coffee I was drinking.  I was grateful for the music app I was using, which has introduced me to a lot of music I might have never heard otherwise.

Practicing gratitude has encouraged me to rethink my perspective in life.  I tend to focus on the roadblocks I face, but I'm beginning to see that often there are more roads than roadblocks.

On one Saturday morning, I was meeting some people to do some work at a food bank, and I had planned to eat at a nearby restaurant beforehand.  When I arrived at the restaurant, I realized that I had made a logistical error, for the restaurant would not open for a few hours.  By tapping a single button on my phone, I found another nearby restaurant that was actually open.  One week later, I needed to print an article for Sunday school, and, as I've lamented previously, my printer is out of commission.  I learned that I can print documents at a nearby office supply store for a very small fee.

One unexpected benefit of my discipline of daily gratitude has been the opportunity to chronicle more parts of my life, particularly the good ones.  Last year, I tried to make it a point to periodically "check in with myself" - in other words, to process, in writing, what I was feeling at the time.  Far too often I ended up writing about how tired I was or how frustrated I was about certain parts of my life.  My practice of daily gratitude has given me the opportunity to write about meals I've shared with people, randomly running into friends when I was out and about, meeting friends for coffee, experiences with my church small group, and signs of growth in my life.

The circumstances of my life haven't really changed very much in the past month.  What has changed is the fact that I've chosen to turn my attention to different things in my life.  I've come to the conclusion that gratitude does not negate the bad things in life, but that it instead reminds us that the bad things do not negate the good things.  I encourage you, dear reader, to consider ways in which you can cultivate gratitude.  As for me, I will continue my current practice of daily gratitude for the time being, and I will look for other ways to focus on gratitude this year.


Notes:

1. Welcome to South Carolina!

The photograph featured above was taken by Wikimedia Commons user Infrogmation in the grotto of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in New Orleans.  It is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.