600 days of gratitude

A couple of days ago I hit day 600 in my personal Facebook gratitude posts. SIX HUNDRED. Six hundred days of posting what I’m grateful for. Six hundred days. That’s a lot of days and it blows me away that I’ve kept it up this long. Call it dedicated, compulsive, whatever, but I’ve never been sorry I’ve kept it going this long.

The only break I’ve taken since I started these some 600 days ago is when I had surgery last month and once I was back online, I simply started where I left off.

Every 100 days or so, I try to explain how I got started and why I do this. I started this nearly two years ago as part of a 30-day Thanksgiving challenge. I had attempted it before but it never stuck — it never became a habit to me. A couple weeks into the challenge, my father was killed in a house fire. Those were dark days for our family and throughout the days of aftermath, I found things to be thankful for — even in the darkness.

December rolled around and I wasn’t ready to stop. So I kept going. Thirty days turned into 60. Sixty turned int0 100 and now I’m past 600. For me it’s a daily time to reflect on one thing I’m thankful for. Sure there are days I put more effort into it than others. And sure, some days I post just to get my daily thankful in. After 600 days, you’re going to have days where you do it just to get it done. But, it’s a part of my daily life now and I have no intention of stopping anytime soon.

Continuing these thankfuls have kept me centered on gratitude. You can find gratitude in the darkest of situations — and yes, sometimes you have to really flipping work for it. For me, gratitude doesn’t just happen. Just this morning I was driving to work with a lot on my mind and feeling very ungrateful and disgruntled. Between surgery recovery and some other challenges, I’ve been exhausted and overwhelmed, especially this week. These words from another blog came to mind: “Fulfillment and happiness in everyday life doesn’t just happen.  We have to work for it.  We have to make choices.  Part of that is choosing to be positive and not feed the fear and anger.”

Pretty much sums it up. Credit for blog above: I Got A Dumpster Family. I’ve been a reader of this blog for years. You should too, you won’t be sorry. You can find the complete post from her blog here.