Have you ever noticed that when you pay attention and stay grateful for the little things in your life, most things seem to go well? For the last three years I've created a gratitude challenge on my blog. This year I choose to I write down ten-things-of-thankful (TToT) and post them on the SMART Living FB page every day for 30 days. Now that I've completed the challenge, it's obvious that most of what I listed was little and routine experiences. Gradually I came to realize that when we recognize (with gratitude) those little things that happen each and every day, we are reminded, and appreciate just how important most of those things are for a happy life.
For example, just about every morning I wake up after a good night's sleep and journal. If I start writing my list then I automatically list how glad I am for a good night's sleep and how great I'm feeling because of it. But that's kind of boring, right? I, or any of you who are also doing a gratitude list, might overlook it or take it for granted. Still, if you tossed and turned all night long, and that happens day after day, you have a really big problem on your hands. Sure it might be more interesting to complain or whine about not getting sleep, but highlighting a good night with gratitude surely leads to greater happiness.
Another related element to that scenario is how listing everything we have to be grateful for sounds a little bit like bragging. Last year during my gratitude challenge I wrote about the "Five Myths Of a Thankful Life." I believe it's important to remind ourselves of those five myths on a regular basis. But one that I didn't mention was the idea of how being too grateful sounds egotistical. Let's face it: Not everyone is that interested in hearing the good things that happen to others. On the other hand, if I tell you of a challenge that I'm having and listed 10 of those in one day, many of you would take the time to comment and encourage me. While that can be sweet and compassionate, I truly believe that we serve each other equally as well (or more) when we help others celebrate the good.
With that in mind, here is just one list of Ten-Things-of-Thankful (TToT) for where I include a bunch of the "little" things that many of us routinely enjoy but may take for granted. They are:
- Waking up from a good night's sleep. Of course when I was younger this didn't carry the same weight on my gratitude meter. But for those of us who have been around awhile, this is really important and deserves to be recognized with gratitude.
During the time I was doing my third gratitude challenge there were a couple of times when I wondered why on Earth I was doing it. Does it matter? Does anyone else really care? Is it really necessary to make a big deal of being thankful for the things in our life that are mostly little and routine?
But when you think about it, isn't life more or less a series of millions of little moments and things that add up to a quality life? Perhaps then one of the SMARTest things we can do is to take the time to focus on and be grateful for all those little things in our lives over and over again, just to remind ourselves how important those things are in the big picture of our lives.