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What are the simple things in your life that you are thankful for?
Now is a time in the US when we slow down, spend time with loved ones, and reflect and share gratitude. So what are you thankful for right now in your life?
That I got born into a good family. As I've grown older I've realized that my family, both immediate and extended, is a "unicorn" family. There was some messiness on one side but my parents kept me away from it so I had no idea until I reached adulthood. Even with that, there's so much love on both sides. I read about families fighting and being toxic and all sorts of other drama, and I can honestly say I would be genuinely, thoroughly shocked if anything of the sort happened.
I just got really lucky and won the parent lottery.
For some, that kind of family is unimaginable: people who don't take away from your mental health but build it up; people who can actually be relied upon in times of need because they have a track record of being there all the time; people who can express love and tenderness and taking healthy pride in one another without strings attached or a precursor for darker moods or used as weapons to "show off" to others or the scape goat child. People who actually enjoy spending time with you, and who are curious about your likes and dislikes and remember them, and who are willing to prioritize that weekly scheduled call.
:) congratulations on your lottery, and I'm sure your family has also greatly blessed all the other kids and strays they've come across over the years, and were instrumental in them breaking free and breaking the cycle.
While most purely people think “Oh no I’m becoming like my dad” I’m more like “Oh nice I’m becoming like my dad!”. He’s a very kind person.
My daughter is healthy. I have a toddler that has only needed the basic care cycle. Physicals are fine and genetic tests for possible issues have come back negative. With the state of the medical system here I am thankful that following the recommended schedules is effectively the limit of our suggested interactions with it.
So crucial, glad your daughter is healthy and thriving!
It pains my heart seeing parents with children dealing with serious health issues - often something completely outside of ones control and can make an already challenging task of raising a child extra straining, not to mention the mental stress.
That's always a wonderful simple miracle, every day. "A healthy man has many wishes, a sick man only one" is exponentially true for parents of sick kids.
It may sound corny, but my ability to accurately reflect on things.
Regardless of the situation, I'm always able to get the positives out of it and not stay in a negative state of mind.
I've built up a couple of "fail-safes" when things go wrong and it has always saved me.
I've been told by many that I'm always a positive person and it's really because I am able to fully understand situations from both sides.
I am super grateful that my brain can do that!
Not corny at all, this is probably one of the best 'habits' one can develop. Lots of well-done data supports gratitude as a big component of living a happy and fulfilling life!
Could you elaborate on this? Are these fail safes to help you remain positive? How do they work?
My favourite one is "what difference does it make?"
I'm picky and intense on a lot of things that I can control and it happened many times in my life where I was tempted to complain on something that irritated me. In the end, after some time reflecting on it, I found that just asking myself "heh, what difference does it make anyways?" really helped. It turns my brain into an analyst bot where I see how inconsequential something is and I'm able to either make the small change or just let go of the negative thoughts because it doesn't really matter anyways.
Another one is "it's never too late". I often stressed in the past about not doing something and I realized quickly that life is not a race. I used to look at other people's lives and dislike mine because I didn't achieve what they did at their age. But this feeling is endless. So I told myself many times that "it's never too late" and it always grounds me.
So the fail-safes are really just sentences that stop any further downward negative spiraling. I have a couple others for general situations and after working at it for decades now, I realize that I don't hold any negative thought for more than a day. Sometimes it takes me a second, sometimes it takes me a day, but never really more than that.
My absolute fail-safe is "we're all gonna die anyways" and that has really helped for more intense stressful situations.
That's a great talent, want to share some of your favourite tactics?
I'm thinking something like, if forces into a detour, look for small enjoyable things that you wouldn't otherwise have seen. Or, if flight is delayed, enjoy the travel accommodations and treat it as a mini bonus vacation. Or, if people, related, imagine how perhaps they're having the worst day of their life and momentarily felt better having vented and I'm unlikely to ever see them again anyway. That kinda thing?
Kinda yeah.
For people, I always try to find a quality in them and those that I really don't like, I just go with "they don't deserve to be in my life" and try to avoid them.
As for situations, it's kinda hard to translate from french (I speak french), it would be "that goes with it" (ça vient avec). Traffic? That goes with working and getting money. Chores? That comes with wanting a clean place. Small talk? That comes with wanting to be liked but my coworkers. Losses? That comes with any competition.
Also, it helps that I forced myself early on to see what I can control in life and what I cannot control. After many years, I have small tricks I can use to maximize the dopamine of any situation so I'm not bored out of my mind or frustrated because I'm stuck in a bad place. Control what you can, let go of the rest.
That sounds like a regular superpower: you've hacked your own dopamine release situation and mastered the Serenity Prayer ("God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference")
Without the parent comment I don’t think I would’ve thought about it, but I’d say being able to stand up to (and where possible, correct) mistakes is probably adjacent to having good self-reflection skills.
I still don’t know what exactly made me tick that way today, but in that vein I am glad I can acknowledge and own the times I’m just plain wrong instead of starting an argument to defend my thought.
Also, I suppose you can have a high ego and still work like this, staying thankful for corrections because in the end you’ll be smarter for them; it just can’t be a brittle ego. So, I guess, the “tactic” here is to not be ashamed of being wrong (at least, not more than necessary) – which I’ll be first to admit is 100% is easier said than done, and also is easier online, pseudonymized, with prepared writing than IRL, face-to-face, in real time in a heated disagreement. But you can always try!
It really is a wonderfully useful trait that pays a lifetime of dividends. I can't say that I've personally cultivated it, I'm sure others have spent the time and had the discipline to obtain/refine this power, but I'm thankful I somehow stumbled into a smaller version of this, and intend to hold on to it as long as my brain is capable of doing so.
Yeah, seeing the silver lining where others can't is a massive bonus. Stay positive and pragmatic, you're one of a kind!
What is best in life? Soft bathroom tissues, good dental care, and running water. We live better than most kings, and I have seen more exotic animals (! Alive! Happy!) than emperors
I always try to take pause and reflect on our incredible material prosperity. I sometimes get a little annoyed over the price of cappuccinos or insurance, and I can lose broader perspective of our material abundance. Virtually every single person in the developed world has access to a comfortable, clean bathroom with (hot) running water. Bidets are the best, but soft toilet paper would have been an unimaginable luxury to most of humanity for much of history, who had to make do with... hay, straw, moss, or—can you imagine—a communal sponge?
Tonight at a friend's home I held a jar of Heinz Turkey Gravy and thought about how it cost just $2, the cost of a few minutes of labor. In the end, we probably threw away 2–3 jars worth of gravy, nonchalantly. Once upon a time, that gravy probably cost hours of labor for material and preparation.
As a counterpoint to your gravy in a jar, one of the things I am grateful for is the ability to make a good gravy!
I love that I have the means and ability to roast and then boil down turkey bones, make a broth, skim it, and then turn that into gravy that tastes exactly the way I want it to.
It's one of the highlights of my personal vision of xmas.
But I'm very aware that it takes a lot of time and resources to be able to get it 'just right'. And none of it is ever thrown away; it's jealously hoarded as a vital Boxing Day leftovers-sandwich ingredient.
Who would have thought that gravy would feature so prominently in a list of simple pleasures!
I'm grateful to have read enough Pratchett to get those "best in life" things. 😏
Not gonna lie, but this is the one that reminded me of "to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women".
As @patience_limited spied, it's a Terry Pratchett reference, which is a reference to the Conan quote you identified :D
Cohen the Barbarian, of the Silver Hoard, The Light Fantastic (1986)
Ahh, I can't lie, I only saw Conan about 3 years ago. I read The Light Fantastic about 20 years back, so the reference would have been lost.
I too have thankfully seen very few emperors! ;)
:D haha! Indeed!
I'm grateful my dad is still here. He has so far 'beaten' stage 4 cancer and it's pretty incredible.
My wife spent six days away for work. Caring for our 2-year-old was hard but manageable, and we always have help. After two days with my wife away, our son got very attached to me, which is not common at that age when kids are usually addicted to their mothers. He held me very tight and sometimes demanded to be held for long periods. I put him to sleep every day. I took him to the third and largely empty floor of our home. I showed him the clouds, the trees, and the airplanes in the sky. Eventually, he slept, and I carefully put him on his bed. Now that my wife is back, we resumed the usual dynamics. I am there for him, of course. And he does ask for me sometimes. But I'm more in the background of his affections.
I am thankful for the last week with my son.
My cat! My cat has been the mvp for the past few years I was unwell. She keeps me going. She wakes me up every morning. She's also an incredibly nice and patient cat who likes to play and cuddle. She's so low maintenance, she's a great recovery cat.
I'm also appreciative that I have a roof over my head without having to pay rent. Although that means having to live with my parent (we're not close).
I'm also appreciative that I have nice supportive friends. As a kid, I was so weird that I didn't have any. So I know kid me would be amazed by me having so many nice friends. Because I could very easily have been a person without one.
I'm also most appreciative that I have all my body parts intact.
I'm grateful for the opportunities I've been given this year, and the courage I've had to pursue them.
We've been having some plumbing issues that we thought went away but remanifested over last weekend.
They came to a head today, where our basement was inundated with outflow trying to go, well, out.
So I'd just like to say, I really appreciate that we have good a good plumbing and sewer system in general.
There's a lot more I could say (as I'm healthy, etc.), but I'm keeping it stupid simple. :)
Last February our furnace died suddenly a week before a cold snap. I'm thankful that we were able to get it replaced quickly and that we just finished paying off the new one this week.
I'm very thankful for my small family circle, and friends, to enjoy time with. Not everyone has that and I know it can feel lonely without that.
I'm healthy, my wife is healthy, my kids are healthy, I still have a lot of friends (probably more than ever at this point in my life, which is weird) that I see frequently.
I have a large extended family I like, who are also happy and healthy and I generally want for absolutely nothing. I've been able to be a stay at home parent for 7 or so years now, though I'm looking for work and we've still been able to pay all our bills.
I’m thankful for the great privilege of job security I’ve enjoyed for the last year, something I took for granted prior to 2022. Thank you for asking. What are you thankful for @philosurfer?
When my class ends at night I call my husband as I’m walking to my car. He always does this thing where he checks if the ferries are on time, the name of the boat I’ll be on, where it’s currently located, and how many tickets are left for it. He then checks my drive time on maps to see if I have enough time to catch it. While I’m driving he gives me updates, and when I get there he starts checking to see if he can see my car on any of the cams and if he does, he says he gets all excited. If he can’t see me, I’ll tell him which cars or trucks are around me. I text him when the car is loaded and again as the boat docks at its destination at which time he checks maps again to calculate my arrival into the driveway. He’s done this for over 20 years and it used to bug the crud out of me. But now I’m so grateful that I see it for what it is, that he’s participating in my life, that he looks forward to seeing me, and that he’s sharing that with me.
That’s sweet, I’m glad you’ve got a loving husband.
In September we celebrated 1 year since we moved to Germany. Im thankful for the time we have had here, and our growing support network here.
I'm thankful for Canadian Thanksgiving in October ;). But truthfully, I'm thankful that despite current circumstances, our continental partnership hasn't resulted in us lobbing bombs at each other for more than a century.
Stability and national friendship is important and we (especially the Canadians) take it for granted every day.