I happened upon some valuable research findings about gratitude a few years ago at a professional conference in Houston called the Up! Experience. The study was on the science of happiness, and was conducted at Harvard and shared by a professor named Shawn Achor. The research found that practicing gratitude increases our baseline for happiness. In other words, by practicing gratitude daily we actually become more happy.
Recently I decided to share this knowledge with my friends on Facebook. 21 days is how long it takes to create a habit so I am practicing 21 days of gratitude online. On my status I am posting "Take two minutes to write down three things you are grateful for today. GO!" Then I write three things in the comments and wait. Today we are 8 days in and I began wondering if people are not responding because they may believe my head is in the clouds.
The thing is, that is not what gratitude is really about. "Practicing" gratitude daily by writing down what we are grateful for is an intentional act designed to train the brain to seek, find and focus on the good things in life. It is not to say that nothing is going wrong, but rather to say that despite whatever is going wrong, I still see the beauty in life. When the brain seeks beauty for 21 days in a row, due to the Tetris Effect, it begins to search for beauty automatically. And we cannot focus on what is good and bad simultaneously. We see one or the other in this moment. So I choose gratitude. Won't you join me?
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