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Radical Gratitude: Day One
Embarking on a month-long challenge to register a daily miracle.
Like many people, I keep a daily gratitude journal. It’s a modest little notebook on my bedside table where I jot down five things I’m thankful for, just before I turn out the light.
The items can be general — coffee, laughter, babies — or specific, like the way the sunlight suffused the turning leaves of the vineyard where I walked the dog just before sunset. I stick to the rule of five as a discipline: sometimes I could go on for much longer, and sometimes I have to really dig to hit my target.
There are, of course, nights when I’ve had a hard day, or I’m in a rotten mood, or I’m exhausted at the thought of thinking of five good things, and I’d really just rather turn out the light and go the hell to sleep. Those are the very nights when my gratitude journal comes to my rescue.
The journal is not well-composed or lyrical or even particularly organized. It’s not meant for sharing. I rarely reread my entries. It’s a practice, a coda to my day in the same way morning meditation gets my brain and spirit and temperament hopefully pulling in the same direction before I go join the world.
But today, here at the beginning of the Thanksgiving month in the U.S., it occurred to me that I could go a…
