Bustr Bensn

My problem with listing 3 things I’m grateful for

Almost every recent book on positive psychology (Flourish, Redirect, and The Happiness Advantage to name a few off the top of my head) mention one exercise that has been proven in studies time and again to have not only immediate positive effects, but also effects that last for months after the exercise has ended. The exercise is to list 3 things you’re grateful for every day.

I’m an admitted self-help junkie, and yet even I find this exercise to be a little cheesy. Not only that, but it also feels forced. I resist it. My gut reaction to forcing happiness is that it seems potentially dangerous, and insincere. What if we end up just repressing negative feelings rather than resolving them?

Yet, on the other hand, I know that sometimes we can be surprised by the effectiveness of brute force on our actual selves. Exercise, eat right, get enough sleep, and all will be well. Sometimes it feels like we’re just a bundle of mechanisms that, tuned correctly, lead to a balanced mental state. Many of the outer world’s problems magically go away when our inner world is healthy.

Possibly the most difficult thing to admit about why I resist the gratitudes exercise is that I find them to be difficult. Sitting and trying to think of things to be grateful for (even when I instinctively know that there are tons right in front of me) is a lot like turning off a hiking trail and clawing through vines and brush to get to my destination. It’s difficult mental work, and it’s embarrassing to admit that sometimes. The difficulty, at least in my case, is probably because my brain’s not used to thinking in this way. They are unused and unfamiliar neural pathways.

Which, when I think of it that way, makes me want to do them more.

I should not resist the unused neural pathways just because they’re a bit thorny and slow going. In fact, I should be diving into them with my best machete, clearing the way. Claiming territory in my brain that really should be mine.

And that’s the point of this exercise. Or, at least, it’s the point that convinces me to change my stance on the topic.

The act of clearing out new paths of thinking has a few primary effects.

It gets easier over time
I end up proactively noticing things in real time that I can “use later” during my 3 gratitudes
I realize how many of the things I’m grateful for are super simple things. My walk to work, coffee in the morning with Kellianne, a surprising twist in a conversation.

The whole cycle of thought around this idea is helping me reverse my initial negative reaction about the 3 gratitudes, and turning it into more of a sincere interest. Now there just need to be less cheesy and ugly tools to help me make the gratitudes habit real.

A somewhat related, and entertaining, TED talk that got me thinking more about this: