In thinking about this today, I try to remind myself about the small things--those cute, small things that are good. Sometimes, the only way I can feel better on a given day is to shift my focus from the overwhelming big-ness of yuck to the happiness that can be found in little pieces.
Several years ago, I kept a little gratitude journal. Each day (or at least most days) I would take a moment to jot down something that I was grateful to have experienced. Something that brought me a little spark of happiness. Sometimes the things I wrote down were kind of significant or connected to bigger things, but most of the time they were very simple.
I thought that, by sharing a few examples, that maybe I can help lift my own spirits and those of a few readers. Some of these might seem really weird, but, news flash...I'm super weird. It comes with the territory.
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"Sophie and those teasing scrub jays" (explanation to follow)
My cat, Sophie, had a hilarious relationship with some birds. There was a tree out in front of the condo I owned in Utah. There were these birds, which I think were scrub jays, who would squawk and squawk at Sophie. She would, like a true cat, sit on the window sill, flick her tail around, and make that weird clicky dolphin noise that cats make when they are looking at birds. There was even a time when Sophie was outside with me, enjoying the nice weather, and those birds got down on the ground and got much closer to her than I think was wise. However, unlike a wild cat (or sometimes simple domestic cats who have a craving for bird flesh), Sophie did not chase the birds. She would stalk them a little, but never try to catch them. Had she wanted to, I'm sure she could have. The birds would hop toward Sophie, squawk at her, then hop a few feet away. Then they would repeat it. This became a regular thing, and it made me smile.
"Taking a walk"
"Quails in the grass"
"I got a hug from Carlos Moreno!" (explanation to follow)
In the beautifully glorious year of 2004 (really, 2003-2004) I was a sophomore in college. My roommates and I were obsessed--and I mean truly obsessed...to the point of it being a little unhealthy but completely awesome--with the BYU men's volleyball team. We had favorite players. One of my roommates had deep and abiding love for Carlos Moreno. To her, he was "the hottest man in the world" (said with an accent we pretended was Brazilian since that's where Carlos was from). We semi-stalked these players and had complete pretend worlds we made up about their personalities and lives. Well, to skip over a trillion details in order to get to the point, there was an evening when a few of us were over at his apartment/apartment complex and Carlos walked up to me and gave me a hug as he was leaving for a basketball game or something. I freaked out like a 12-yr-old at an N*SYNC concert.
"A squeaky paper cutter"
"Feeling valued"
"Movies with Audrey Hepburn and/or Cary Grant"
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The whole point of this is to bring up good, positive, gratitude-inducing small things. It took me only a few seconds, really, to write down a small moment from the day. On some days I would write down more than one thing. Some days required me to sit and really think about what specific thing I could feel thankful for experiencing. But, I tell ya, I have referenced these little journals more than once, and they always ALWAYS bring a smile to my face. It's great how a small fragment of a sentence can bring back a complex and detailed memory of happiness.
We can mow over those rough patches with thankfulness, and it's not all that hard to start.
Small things are powerful. Taking a moment each day to reflect on the good can benefit our perspective in both the short- and long-term. Beauty in life is abundant and here to bless us. We just have to take a moment to notice it.
And hey, I feel much better than I did when I started this post. That's pretty great!
Boom--gratitude lawnmower-ed!
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