My experience with gratitude

A few months ago, scrolling on YouTube, I saw a video from Kurzgesagt — In a Nutshell, about gratitude as an antidote to dissatisfaction.

They explained the importance that gratitude has in our lives and how many studies had demonstrated that gratitude directly stimulates the pathways in our brains involved in feelings of reward, forming social bonds, and interpreting other’s intentions. In this video, they offer many options for trying recognition. It could be writing our thoughts on the things that we could be grateful for or buying their beautiful journal.

At first, I began writing my thoughts on a journal I already had; it was fun and easy at the beginning because I started being grateful for the things I had in my life. Two months later, my girlfriend bought the beautiful journal from Kurzgesagt for me. I won’t say it is a lot different, but it is more challenging, and obviously, their illustrations are beautiful and motivate you to keep going (or at least that’s what I think).

They guide you through all the process, and they began challenging you to recognize the things and experiences you can be grateful for in that day, which makes it a lot harder, but in the long-term, it makes the experience more enjoyable.

Being in Costa Rica, I stayed at a friend’s house, where the internet connection was terrible; to be honest, it was like not having any. I had forgotten my books, it was raining so I couldn’t even walk outside, my friend was not having a great time either, so there was not a lot we could talk about, or maybe we were not in the mood. I had many projects that I had to work on, and all of them required me to have an internet connection. I felt useless.

Luckily, the next day, my friend had to do a legal procedure in a city that was at six hours from his house. Later, we will sleep in a cabin, which did not have only an internet connection but neither had an excellent infrastructure nor good beds and food.

The truth is I was distraught and anxious about the unfortunate events that were happening to me. But it was time to write some things I was grateful for, at least not in my day, but in my life in general; I was supposed to write something I was grateful for that I usually do not notice.

And it was there, when I got a little bit of clarity, yes, I had to sit for 6 hours straight in a car and do absolutely nothing but procrastinate for more hours, and still, there were a lot of things that if I didn’t have them, would definitely make my life worse. Having access to drinking water, had a place where I could sleep (even if it was not comfortable), I had the capacity to buy food in another place, I had a phone which I could use to take photos of the travel, and ultimately, I was healthy. I had an infinity of things I could be grateful for.

I am not saying we should settle with what we have; what I am trying to say is that many times for one simple thing that goes wrong, we forgot all the ones that have gone right.

Isn’t it the purpose of many prayers in most religions? Gratitude.