cultivating gratitude

All the happy people I’ve met are far from naïve and have a healthy realisation that life is not always shiny. I reckon accepting this helps you cultivate gratitude for the good things that come your way.

The quote above came from an email newsletter I received this morning (remember how I said relevant things just start falling into my lap when I'm concentrating on something?). The article is entitled Happiness is hard work. I relate to this quote because what I think of as my innate optimism isn't blind to the awful, tragic, unexplainable things that happen sometimes, but I do tend towards the attitude that things will work out over time. Perhaps my nice middle class, fairly comfortable life makes that easy to say, but I think I would work with whatever life threw at me with a similar sense of hope.*

Today I am grateful for:

• the phone call from my father for a quick chat and to tell me about a couple of television programs on Italy that were on tonight :)
• a seriously good laugh watching Stephen Fry's QI - no idea why I haven't watched this before - it's hilarious!
• getting back into the work groove - I'm ploughing through it now :)
• a boychild for whom losing a tooth is no drama - in fact if it's loose enough to be bothering him, he will ask the husband to pull it out (the tooth fairy came to visit last night) :)

*Note: This is 'normal' me speaking, rather than the version that spirals down at times. Fortunately this one is around more often :)