Gratitude, Even on Bad Days?
“Saying that I was grateful when everything around me was falling apart seemed so hypocritical!”
A few months ago, I watched a YouTube video on practicing gratitude. It was by one of the women I admire greatly and hold in high regard. She was talking about how she decided to set alarms and reminders to help her practice gratitude. I really loved her ideas on why we need to practice gratitude and instantly thought, “How hard can it be to practice gratitude? How hard can it be to say three things that I am grateful for every day?” I could even say them offhand there and then. One, life. Two, food. Three, my job. It sounded like the perfect habit to start off the year with. With so much excitement and enthusiasm, I set up what we can call gratitude alarms. The first was at 7 am, the second at 1 pm, the third at 5 pm, and the final one at 10 pm.
The first few days went by smoothly because I had so much to be grateful for. I was comfortable, my family was okay, I was eating chicken and work had never been so great! Everything was happening exactly as I expected it to. It was so easy to say thank you because I had every reason to be so grateful. The gratitude alarms were like a good reminder that I had to say thank you for all good things in my life. Honestly, when you think about it, it is easy to say thank you when things are going on well.
As time went by, things started to change a little bit. I was having bad days, and on those days, it was so difficult to be grateful. I was overwhelmed, tired and nothing in my life seemed to be going as well as I liked. The buzzing sound of the alarms was particularly annoying, and it took a lot of effort thinking about the good things happening in my life every time they went off. Saying that I was grateful when everything around me was falling apart seemed so hypocritical!
Why was it hard for me to keep being consistently grateful? There were other things in my life that I could be grateful for. The small simple things! For example, the fact that I was able to wake up to running water every morning. Surely, I could even be thankful that there was electricity every weekday and I was able to go to work with properly ironed clothes.
Side Note: I am that last minute person who “prefers” to iron my clothes the day I want to wear them. Imagine the chaos that would happen if I woke up to no electricity!
So, why was it easy to decide that on bad days I was excused from not practicing gratitude?
It was because I was looking at the bigger picture when I thought about gratitude. I was so focused on the remarkable events that went well and was therefore unable to notice the small things that happen every day. Do you sometimes do that too? We tend to only be grateful for the remarkable and memorable things that occur in our lives thereby overlooking the simple things that we ought to be grateful for. However, we need to be grateful for everything, the simple things, the remarkable things, and everything in between. Gratitude is so powerful. It gives you a deep sense of awareness. What you appreciate and feel good about gives you joy; it brings warmth into your heart and gives you hope when you are trying to go through the rough patches in life.
When I decided to be grateful for everything and anything, I put the gratitude alarms on hold for 2 weeks and during that time, I started randomly picking out simple things to be grateful for. I became exceedingly aware of how important some simple things I had overlooked were. Who knew that sugar could be so important? You will be surprised and amused when you start noticing the smallest things while practicing gratitude
I must warn you though. It will be difficult to practice gratitude on bad days. You will feel tired after a couple of days. I would be worried if you didn’t! However, while on your journey to incorporate this practice into your life, do not wait to be grateful only when you are happy. Be grateful all the time and when you feel like there is nothing to be grateful for, look around you and pick one unexpected thing to be grateful for. You could even start with water or electricity!
Say thank you for something simple today! Try it!
