In an effort to re-center myself, I've been examining gratitude. Here are some things I am grateful for:
spouse
children
faith
friends
home
extended family
health
safety
opportunity
food
clean water
healthcare
job
relative peace
relative stability
things big (car, computer, etc)
things small (comfy shoes, cheap sunglasses, etc)
.
.
What are you grateful for?
My wife My kids My dog My brother Music mk b_b ecib Hubski Forever Labs My therapist Meditation Pushups My health My stem cells My grandparents My lifestyle Not having to worry about things like: food, rent/mortgage/clothes/car I'm grateful to be following my dreams I'm grateful for the moments that slap me in the face and force me in to presence I'm grateful that my son loves to dance and play with me I'm grateful that my daughter loves to color with me I'm grateful for sous-vide steak I'm grateful for bulletproof coffee I'm grateful for my slippers that I can wear outside too. GET A PAIR, TRUST ME I'm grateful for the people that took the time to mentor me as a child and young-adult I'm grateful that tomorrow it will be 65* and sunny where I live I'm grateful to be alive
The shortest answer I can give is: I'm thankful for being able to do things I want to do. While I can't do everything, I can do many things much of the time. This is mostly related to a stable, safe society (clean water, consistent access to food and energy), secure finances (stable income and savings) and health. None of this is guaranteed, and I'm grateful for having these things. I also really like my cats. I heard one of them get up early this morning, but by the time my alarm went off she was back laying next to me.
Those are mostly major things in life. I really enjoyed Shawn Achor's book The Happiness Advantage which I bought after seeing his Tedx talk. In that book he talks about how important gratitude is in having a more positive mental state. A simple activity for gratitude is to spend a few minutes at the end of each day reflecting back on what happened to you during the day and finding some small (or not so small) positive things to be grateful for. At first I found it difficult, but after a while I noticed a change - I started to actually look for things to be grateful for during the day, then later another thing I noticed was that my perspective on small insignificant things changed and where I might have been annoyed at something I'd re-frame it so that it was a positive. It's weird, by forcing yourself to try and find something nice amongst the mundane and irritation of the day, you start to notice that actually there's a whole lot fo really good things happening that you would otherwise ignore or not even notice.