I kept a journal for a week responded to prompts about gratitude. I already knew I was thankful for the life I have but keeping the journal made me understand a certain part of my life that I never realized I was thankful for. I’m thankful for memories I have rather than items. I am more thankful for my family than I am for my house. Writing in this journal made me reflect on the goods parts of my life but also on the harder aspects of my life. One of the prompts reminded me of how struggle can be good, especially if it changed you, helped you in some way, or even helped someone else.
Through journaling for a week I realized gratitude is a very important thing for people to practice. Practicing gratitude can be extremely meaningful and beneficial if people get in depth with it and are thoughtful about it. Showing and practicing gratitude can be much more meaningful than just listing things you’re thankful for. Gratitude can help you realize moments in your life that changed you, it can help you remember important parts of your life that you may have forgotten. Practicing gratitude can give new perspectives on new and old views. Sometimes you realize the bad memories, mistakes, and hardships are not always things that you are necessarily grateful for but changed who you are as a person, for the better. This is like the saying, do you see the glass half empty or half full? Do you choose to only see the negative in every situation or will you try to see the positive.
I think indirectly, this is one of the surprises that was mentioned in the article we read, that correlated surprise and gratefulness. Finding the positive in negative situations can be surprising. When you look back on memories that are tied to unpleasantry, it may surprise you to find out that you are actually grateful for that moment in time. For example, going through a long period of depression or stress related struggles and overcoming those struggles are literally life changing. What gets you out of that rut can permanently change you. I personally went through a struggle like that, getting out of that time helped me grow as a person. I am surprised at how much I have changed since then.
For some, rewiring your brain to have a different perspective on negative situations can improve quality of life, reduce fear and worry. In another article I read it talks about how negative bias is a preset in our brains, for primal reasons. Practicing gratitude will cut across this mindset and help give way for a more positive perspective. A study done found that people who practice gratitude do not ignore or deny the unpleasantness of life but rather learn to appreciate the positive as well.
Through personal experience, I know that focusing too much on the negative, turns neutral experiences negative. Kind of like, if you expect your day to be bad and crappy, you may point out the badness of the day and ignore the good parts. Sometimes your own brain can manifest the negativity you chose to notice. You can talk yourself into having a bad day sometimes. I’ve done it too myself, I think it’s part of human nature. However, through practicing gratefulness maybe you can turn bad days into good ones, by manifestation. If you tell yourself you will have a good day, perhaps you will.
Through change and gratitude, people can learn to appreciate life more. They don’t have to focus on what’s missing but focus on what is there. Everyday we are so blessed to have an abundance of life with beautiful views. Animals that wander around and surprise us on hikes. Plants that are used to scent your favorite lotion. Practicing gratefulness will help us all see the beauty in the world that already exists. It can help others feel close to nature, and feel the need to help and protect it rather than take it for granted.
An important part of gratefulness is appreciation, but a lot of it is perspective and outward attitude. It’s hard to appreciate what you have in life if you have a bad attitude about life. Accept the fact that not everyday will be a good day. Let life surprise you. Think about what you appreciate in life. Keep a journal to keep you reminded of how good the world can be. The smallest changes can lead you to have a more meaningful life, a happier life. Gratefulness can lead to a more positive life.
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