Sometimes You Just Have to Think About Something

Conventional wisdom says that you need three weeks to form a good habit.

Coincidental that I've been challenged to spend the next 21 days practicing gratitude?

I think not.

Man those people are sneaky. I think I should thank them first for inspiring me to look at my life with a little more gratitude.

I really do have so much to be grateful for.

It's funny how things come together at some points in your life as if all roads led to the same intersection.

Monday morning I sat down with my boss to catch up from the weekend and our discussion turned into a conversation about living in the present--and I hadn't even gotten to the part where I was going to tell her about this Gratitude Challenge.

Practicing a little gratitude is an act that I'm sure can benefit each of us individually and translate into a world that is a little more pleasant to inhabit, but for people like me it's not always easy.

I mean one of my nicknames growing up was Eeyore. "Nice day. So far." (Thanks mom.)

She swears she called me that because I was a worrier and not because I was so negative as a kid, but I will admit that I've spent a good deal of my life looking at the contents of the glass as miserably half gone.

Now I look back at the birth of my children and see that it was probably the point where I began to consider that there might be more left in the glass than I had originally thought. There are still days when I'm not always sure, but just seeing the potential once is really all you need.

So today I proclaim publicly that I will try to form a new, good habit of regularly practicing a little gratitude.

I probably should have started this on Monday, (I'm not sure you're supposed to begin a new habit on a Monday--or that's what I'm standing by) but I needed few days to process this whole thing. And I've noticed something while I've been mulling this idea over.

There are a lot of things I never realized I was grateful for until I startedthinking about the word. Now? I see them everywhere--even in situations that don't initially seem promising (I do have a teenager in my house).

So will I turn all gooey and gross and leave you with a cavity by the end of the first week?

Let's be real. I live with a man and three boys. I'm just going to be grateful that I get to hear the sounds of all those farts.