Gratitude matters

september edition

Our world seems exhausting on the middle day of September 2024. No need to elaborate as we are all experiencing it from what I can tell.

Several years ago I gradually recognised the centrality of gratitude as a principle for reclaiming sanity. Don’t get me wrong: I fail more often than I would like but reading a book on thank you letters really reoriented my thinking. I can’t recall the author’s name and certainly was not in the depressed condition he was in but something clicked as I read his experience. I began consciously saying thank you much more often and focus deliberately on what I have.

That includes things large and small. It’s why taking photographs so regularly appeals. I can save the instant I see something I am privileged to see. A small brush when the cat wants to show her affection means more now than it did when I took those brushes fully for granted, as I now realize I was doing most of the time.

I also think about my actions more deliberately. Yesterday I took some gorgeous late summer tomatoes to try a new recipe from the food section this week. Admittedly pretty pedestrian stuff here, Cynthia.

But, this change in approach is proving a no fail way to stop catastrophizing about the future, a tempting behavior these days. I was pretty upset about a poll I heard the other day until I realized it was a snapshot in time about which I could do absolutamente nada. What could I do instead?

It’s basic but I spend effort focusing on what I am lucky to have or to cook or to create today. I read years ago that a foundational principle in Twelve Step programs from AA to Dieters’ Anonymous to Gamblers’ Anonymous is the focus on right now. Don’t eat that brownie right now but let the sensation pass as a strategy to alter behavior. Put off placing that bet for five minutes, strengthing the urge to stop. These actions don’t always improve things immediately but we are what we do repeatedly. We are what we do repeatedly.

I find this brilliant because right now is all we are guaranteed. None of us knows whether we will be here an hour from now, much less the fifteen years we sometimes fear. We simply don’t know and that will not change.

So, I try remembering to appreciate the roasted late summer tomatoes, stewed for about six hours with thyme, wild rice, red beans, onions, garlic and some vegetable broth. Uh, yes, I actually remembered to replace the broth multiple times as I cooked it sllooowwwwwlllllyyyyyyy to allow the flavors to meld. My husband raved about it; I mean raved. He rarely enjoys something as fully as two bowls he consumed last night. I am thankful he enjoyed it as pleasing someone we care about else is so incredibly rewarding, far more than virtually anything else we can do. Big or small, the step to please someone else can be such a big deal.

My hypothesis is that we have a tendency to overestimate our personal power to influence ginormous problems like world peace while we vastly under appreciate our smaller actions that make a tremendous difference such as a smile, a hug, or a bowl of homemade roasted tomato stew. But the biggest effect is to recognize that we can do all the planning or agonizing but all that we have power over is right now.

Today is another day. This is why gratitude for what I have matters. This might not work for you but it’s what I am doing…at least right now. And I am thankful to have the opportunity denied to so many.

This week we slide into autumn when the days are much shorter, a problem I am trying cope with by being thankful for any light at all. A challenge for me as I would prefer every day have sunlight until at least 9 pm (as I repeat too often) but I have little control over the sun moving. I do have the power to shift my thinking on the privilege of the seeing the light we have. Yet my thoughts don’t matter if I only think about refocusing my thoughts without doing something to implement them, do they?

Actions create consequences.

Thoughts? Retorts? Suggestions? I welcome them all eagerly. I appreciate your time reading this today.

I am sorting old photographs so I am revisiting some I adore. Today’s shot is one of my favorites.

Be well and be safe. FIN