Day 0: Inspiration

Everything I've learned in meditation (and on the internet) about finding happiness speaks to the importance of expressing gratitude and compassion. I'm taking this knowledge to heart and posting my Year of Gratitude in this gratitude journal. I'm considering this my most important resolution of 2018. You can also see all of the photos on Instagram @year_of_gratitude

This gratitude journal was inspired by the typical thoughts on New Year's Eve. This Dec. 31, I found myself thinking about 2017. It was an incredible year in my life. I (finally) married my wonderful, loving husband, ticked off a reservation at one of the best restaurants in DC, did what we dubbed the wedding world tour celebrating with friends in St. Lucia and Guatemala, and adopted the other love of my life:  my little and spunky Havanese, JoJo. I decided that this year, I was finally going to actually commit to documenting all of these things that I'm grateful for. It's not that I feel like it's easy to lose sight of them -- I feel grateful every day for how lucky I am -- it's just that I can also feel simultaneously bogged down with politics (this is DC, after all) the drudgery of daily adulting, and the overachiever inside of me that always feels like I could be doing more -- and better. My innate drive as a human is to solve problems. I just can't help myself. I want to get to the bottom of things, to improve, to brainstorm solutions, to make myself live my best life, which, invariably causes me to hunt insatiably for problems to solve (rather than spending my energy on being thankful). Hence, the need to focus on what is awesome instead of what could be more awesome; the solution to this vexxing problem: a gratitude journal!

Even though I constantly try to convince myself to start a gratitude journal, I've always found it awkward to stare at the blank white page. I feel like a middle school girl thinking about what I should say:  do I address the journal? Like "dear diary"? It makes me physically cringe to think of what I might say. Once I write it, will I be embarrassed at how cliche and ridiculous my voice sounds once it's there on the page? That great vast whiteness has been a bit of my white whale, a weird little Moby Dick in my psyche, the menacing whiteness of the snow in Fargo. 

But, it's time to be a little more brave and stare failure in the face. What's the worst that could happen? Instead of seeing the possibility of failure, I'm going to highlight the bright spots in my life. And, if it comes across as cloying or superficial, so be it // I'm still better off being thankful than afraid of taking a risk// And I'm certainly grateful for that.

Photo by PetrStransky/iStock / Getty Images