500 Words a Week - Gratitude
Unfortunately, gratitude is an emotion that we need to constantly remind ourselves of. One that we feel after watching, reading or listening to something moving. However, the feeling doesn’t last long. Rather than always placing emphasis on what we don’t have or what we are striving to get or achieve, why not spend a little of that time and energy cultivating gratitude. I write this as much for myself, so I heed the words written above. As described, for me gratitude can be something I take for granted. I’ll hear something or read something about the importance of gratitude, and I’ll try to keep it in mind. However, a day or two will go by and I’ll have forgot all about it, and I’ll be back to thinking about the next thing. As with all of us on the hedonic treadmill, we become accustomed to that around us. We constantly think about the next thing. Rather than stopping to savour the moment, to enjoy what we have or have done.
What doesn’t help with this is that we are constantly comparing ourselves to others. Comparing our journeys to others, comparing what others have to what we have. It’s this keeping up with the Jones mentality that never allows us to be content with anything. I’ve wrote before about how aspects of social media have made this more challenging. As people only ever share their best moments, so when we login we are inundated with an overwhelming feed of people doing amazing things. We then think back to our own situation when not much might be going on, and we begin to compare. Rather than remembering we are only seeing the cherry-picked side of people.
We have grown and evolved to have our scales tipped towards a negativity bias. Constantly being aware of the dangers around us. This helped us survive many years ago, when we heard a rustling in the bushes and had to be prepared for the fact that it could be a tiger about to jump out. However, this mindset now hinders us. As now this negativity bias lashes on to little things that happen throughout our day and blows them out of proportion. Such as little unintentional comments other make, how many times has someone said something to us only for us to replay the comment over and over, trying to identify if any malice was meant. With this in mind, it’s easy to see how we can forget to be grateful when we are inherently wired to look for danger in every moment.
Something that’s important to keep into consideration if we start a gratitude practice, is pay as much attention to the small and trivial details as the big. The nice cup of coffee we had, the dinner we ate that someone made for us, the text we got from a loved one checking in. These are the little moments we take for granted, but these are the little moments that add so much joy to our life.
