Flash of Lightning – Gratitude

We are in the season of gratitude and thank goodness for that.  “Count your blessings” is an age-old bromide, the stuff of greeting cards, and is sometimes a hard sell, especially when things aren’t going so great. Our mixed grill of messy character defects, jealousies and spitefulness, greedy-grabbies, melting ice caps, how thin our lashes are getting, and running out of single-origin Nicaraguan decaf coffee beans. Flash of lightning. Clap of thunder. Enter Gratitude. If there’s a day on which Gratitude is splashed all over social media and on Etsy wooden plaques, surely it’s Thanksgiving. But Thanksgiving shouldn’t have the market cornered on giving thanks. Gratitude is an interesting concept. It’s one of those qualities that everyone accepts you should do, but rarely do. Basically because we are often like little chemistry experiments, reacting everywhere we go. But the benefits that showing and feeling gratitude should not be reserved only for the day it’s most culturally expressed. “As we express our our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not other words, but to live by them.” -John F. Kennedy  To be clear, and I may be preaching to the choir, I’m not saying that taking time to reflect and show appreciation for the good in life on Thanksgiving isn’t worthwhile, it’s surely a noble act. I love the rhythms, rituals and respite as much as anyone, it’s just that the very things that make the cornucopia of Thanksgiving so wonderful — the presence of family and friends, time off from work, and grateful that the meal is not salt beef, biscuits and mushy peas like the first Canadian Thanksgiving in 1578, (Martin Frobisher, I’m looking at you)—should not have purposeful expressions of gratitude only on this day.  So, enjoy the congregational company of other people — a live Russian roulette of strange cousins, people you haven’t seen since you were six, an aunt who has an unique way of expressing herself sartorially, or your recently divorced uncle’s new girlfriend. Remember, Thanksgiving wouldn’t be a holiday meal without a little emotional scarring. And I mean this in the nicest possible way. “After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.” -Oscar Wilde We are supposed to gather, support one another, and relax. Yet on the other 364 days of the year, the ones when we might feel lonely, stressed, over-caffeinated—pausing to cultivate a sense of gratitude can make a big difference. Giving thanks on all the other days can help ensure that in the future you’ll have many things to be grateful for because expressing gratitude acts as a kind of course correction, easing away our minds inculcated to see the wine glass as half empty. (Probably because we drank half of it.) Gratitude does not mean Pollyanna sugar-coating the sadness, frustrations, and disappointments of life, pretending all is fine. But expressing a little gratitude offers a recess, like water to a soul. All evidence to the contrary, it doesn’t require much of anything. It’s a choice and costs nothing, except conscious attention and habit of often just ornate ordinary moments—and sometimes, these are the most important moments.    People who are consistently grateful are relatively happier, more energetic, and report experiencing a compelling desire to host Thanksgiving dinner—for the seventh year in a row. “Nobody sees a flower really. It is so small. We haven’t time, and to see takes time.” -Georgia O’Keefe                                                                          Take a walk. A hike. A trek. (Well, maybe not a trek.) Put on your chunky cable-knit sweater, a scarf forged in the fires of Anthropologie, comfortable underpants and sensible shoes, leg warmers, wrist warmers, and forehead warmers, and be astonished by the world. You can remember everything that is true and beautiful about life on any 30-minute walk in the city, in the country, among trees. Enjoy the views and the sacrament of dawdle, the mantle of maturity.  Dallying—now that’s the key. Then go home and take a nap.   “Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts.” -Wendell Berry Appreciate Yourself Put on a better pair of glasses and say five good things to yourself first thing every morning as Anne Lamont quips “as if you were somebody you are fond of and wish to encourage.” Note: try to do this before checking your phone.  “Some people coud look at a mud puddle and see an ocean with ships.” -Zora Neale Hurston                                                                                            Start a Gratitude Journal Write five things you are grateful for before going to bed. It is an incredibly small exercise—and sometimes incredibly hard, especially on those days when Uber Eats forgets to include one of the major items in your sandwich. It is doesn’t have to be great big huge—someone waved your car through backed up traffic, the customer in line allowed you to go ahead of them, your best friend texted you to see if they can drop off some not-dark chocolate.  “I always prefer to believe the best of everybody; it saves so much trouble.” -Rudyard Kipling                                                                 Tweak how we speak and think.  What we think and say, are things we mostly focus on. If we always talk about how bad a day we’ve had, how annoyed so-and-so and how such-and-such made us feel, this will inevitably make us soiled and smudged, bringing up even more feelings of irritation. Down that road, lies madness. Pay more heed to the loveliness of people, rather than the crankiness of people. We don’t have that kind of time to waste in our “one wild and precious life”.  “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes—including you.” -Anne Lamont                                                                       Do something for someone else. Sometimes we are just tapped out. When this happens we need to loosen our waistband and get out of our head. The best way to do this is by focusing on someone else and doing something else. Pick up litter. Hold the door open for someone. Buy someone a coffee. Take blankets that you haven’t used in five years and drive them to the Mustard Seed. Something helpful. Something useful. Something kind. Something you can actually do. I know the Dalai Lama is a big fan. “Do not do unto others as you would have them do unto you; they may have very different tastes.” – Bernard Shaw                                                Say “Thank you” more often. Saying “Thank you” is a basic block of polite society, one of the only things that separates us from squirrels. But often it is just a club password and not very meaningful. It’s not enough to simply feel grateful, we must express it as well. People aren’t mind readers. Don’t assume they know we are grateful. Try making a habit of a “Thank you” as the first and last email, text, or phone call of each day, and make it specific.  “Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough.” -Mark Twain                                                                              Savour positive moments.  It’s a mindset, slowing down, being present, savoring the moment. Forget slurping a pumpkin spice latte looking at your phone. Sit down somewhere cozy. Nibble a delicious cookie. Look around. When success comes, really take the time to celebrate it. Any celebration, big or small, is really about taking a beat to notice the good stuff, a reminder of our talents and abilities, skills and persistence. (All I know is that champagne is never a mistake.) “There are three things I’ve learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin.” -Lucy, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown                                                                                                                         Pay attention. When you meet with another person, give them your undivided attention, even if they are talking about municipal zoning ordinances. Stop consulting the oracle of your iPhone, unless you are eagerly waiting to hear that they’ve procured an organ for your impending transplant. At the very least, the act of gratitude produces significant epigenetic changes in our health and body—and we just might be healing others along the way, keeping the whole shebang afloat. We have a choice on what to focus on—the things that suck, or robins and sticky buns? By the way, if anyone is alone on Thanksgiving, let me know. I need to borrow some chairs.