Living in Gratitude

Question:

How much room is needed for fungi to grow?

Punchline:

As mushroom as possible.

 

In June I was working in a cubicle at an engineering company and felt endlessly unsatisfied. No matter how much I put in the hours at the gym before work, no matter what I bought with my paycheck or what my bank account said I felt like the days were simply passing me by. Then one day on my lunch break I went to the mall across the street and bought a new notebook. I had every intention of using it as a normal journal until I sat down that night to write in it. I realized that I never stay consistent with journals because it is simply too much work at the end of the day and I knew this notebook would be no different. It would get it maybe half filled and then it would join the other party completed bound pages on my bookshelf. So instead, I used my notebook for a new idea I had: three bullet points of things that went well that day. I have done this every night since then and I know the notebook will be filled long before next June.

It works because it’s easy. At most, it takes five minutes so there is never a worthy excuse to not do it. On really good days I write more than three things and that way it is kind of like a journal in the documentation aspect. Besides, who wants to read their old journals just to relive how upset you were? We should be remembering the good things about life. There have certainly been days when it was difficult to think of three good things that happened but I have never written down less than three. The important thing to realize that good things can be as small as eating your favorite cereal in the morning or as big as going on a road trip with your best friends. The whole point is to start looking for the good in everything, in every day.

I absolutely cannot recommend this exercise enough. I promise that after a month you will truly see the world at least a little differently.