Touch Icicles and Eat Cake

Last fall, I wrote a little about gratitude in celebration of Thanksgiving. If you’re interested in taking a deep dive on what I think gratitude is really about and why a slightly (seriously?) grumpy person like me would be interested in it, you can read the full post here. Today, though, I’d love to muse a bit not on what gratitude is or why I think it’s important, but rather on what gratitude does to a person.

As I mentioned in the previous post, it was over ten years ago that I started to take note of the little things in my life that made me smile or brought me joy. I did this, largely, because I liked the idea of it and I think that there’s a poet and/or a contemplative buried somewhere deep within my personality. There was also a small part of me that knew that this was the “right” thing to do and that it would benefit me personally. I expected to notice more things and become more aware of my surroundings. What I didn’t expect was to become a different kind of person. 

When I started to practice gratitude as part of my daily life, I wasn’t really into the whole conversation surrounding habits, discipline, and personalities. Now, however, I’m very aware of my habits and how they impact my daily life. For example, this morning, I decided not to get up when my alarm went off because I had a meeting canceled and my morning schedule was a lot freer. I could afford to sleep in. My habit of getting up early isn’t just because that’s how I’m wired (although, it is that), it’s also because my whole day is shaped by how I spend my morning. When I get up early, I get alone time. I get time to get some basic chores done before anyone else wakes up and interrupts me. When I get up early, I can be pretty productive in the first few hours and it sets the tone for the rest of my day. When I chose to sleep in, however, those things don’t happen. I get very little alone time and I’m usually interrupted in the middle of those chores or tasks that I’d rather do alone. I’m grumpier and upset for the rest of the day because I didn’t do what I know serves me best.

Now, you’re welcome to psychoanalyze me and tell me why I’m wrong in my thinking. You’re probably right, I have problems. The way my brain works, though, isn’t really the point right now, however. The point is that my habits matter. I have chosen and crafted them for a reason: my life is better and I’m more of who I was made to be. I was made to be patient, kind, and peaceful. There are also responsibilities that I have and, when I get up early, I can complete those with ease and efficiency. When I get up early, I can be more patient, kinder, and more peaceful. My habits have a direct impact on who I am.

Unbeknownst to me, when I started to practice gratitude, it did something to me. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m traditionally a negative person. I focus on all the bad things in my life and conveniently forget the good so as to fit into my narrative of doom. But when I started to practice gratitude, that changed. Not quickly or always, but slowly, surely, I became not only a more grateful person, but more able to see the positive in my life and difficult situations. That much, you may think, totally checks out, but there were other things that happened as well. I started to experience less anxiety, feel my emotions more deeply, and desire to slow down. Now, I’m not saying that gratitude will cure mental illness or is a silver bullet for a life well lived. Silver Bullets don’t exist. What I am saying is that, it can’t hurt, and it will certainly help.

Slowing down was the most unexpected consequence for me. If you’ve ever practiced gratitude, even for five minutes, you’re going to know that, in order to notice things that you’re thankful for, you have to slow down. You cannot run 900 miles an hour and notice anything, much less be grateful for it. And, if you know me, you’re going to know that I don’t move all that slowly. I drive the speed limit, of course (that’s not a joke. I love to abide by traffic laws.), but I don’t do much else slowly. I talk quickly, read quickly, process information and respond quickly, and the list goes on. Efficiency is a high priority for me. I haven’t quite sorted out why, yet. Maybe I’ll do that another day. But, for now, it’s enough to know that I don’t like wasting time or resources, so I move quickly.

But when I started to practice gratitude and was forced to slow down, I actually began to want to slow down. The voice that tells me I’m lazy if I take a nap or stop doing things before my to-do list is completed was baffled. That voice, incidentally, is 16-year-old me, I think. And, just in case you didn’t know me then, I was so mean. I was smart and analytical and judgmental and, thus, really good at making you cry. I think that version of me still lives in my head, telling me to “get off your lazy butt and do things and move faster already because don’t you know that the day is getting on without you?” When I’m forced to slow down, however, and actually, God forbid, start to like slowing down, that voice doesn’t know what to say. If speed and rushing through the day isn’t our modus operandi, then what the heck are we here for?

I’ll tell you. 33-year-old Emily is checking in.

You’re here to enjoy God. You’re here to enjoy the world that he made with you in mind. You’re here to acknowledge and thank him in every second of every day because that brings him glory. You’re here to see the tiny glimpses of what this world was meant to be so that you’ll partner with God as he restores it to its former glory. No, not just that. He’s going to make it better than it ever was and you’re here to work with him and watch it happen and say thank you, for crying out loud.

You’re here to be here. Because that’s how God decided things would go. For his own purposes that we can’t understand. At least, I can’t. 

What a surprise! What a delight! What sheer bewilderment it is to be alive and hear the birds and see the sunrise and feel the wind on your face and smell the rain coming (if you’re from the Southern United States) and touch icicles and eat cake! (I told you there was a poet hiding somewhere up in here. Maybe she’ll come out swinging when I’m 54.)

Are you starting to see it? What gratitude has done to me? I’m waxing eloquent about cake. Me, who loves the negative, is telling you that it’s a surprise, not a cosmic joke, to be alive.

Now, I want to be clear. I’m not an expert at this. In fact, I’m smack in the middle of one of the worst seasons of my life. I struggle to be grateful and slow down and find joy in the little things. But. Every night I sit still before I go to bed and I write down things that I am grateful for. Every morning, on the way to school, my daughter and I each thank God for one good thing. I listen to the birds sing and marvel at the sunshine blinking through the trees while I sit in the park. I engage in the practice of gratitude because I know, even though this season is tough and I am bitter and hurt and angry and sad and cynical, gratitude does something to me. Ungratefulness created 16-year-old me. Gratitude is turning me into something better. It’s making me who God made me to be.

Maybe that 54-year-old poet? Stick around and find out.