Spent some time pleasure writing by hand for National Handwriting Day with this Michael J. Fox quote:
I belive it is true, that gratitude is spiritual fuel and a mental focusing additive that powers hope and helps you get through dark challenging times and struggles.
Making gratitude lists is one of my go-to journaling habits. I aim to write down at least three things, but just deciding to scribble down ONE thing I’m grateful for can shift everything in less than a minute. Usually, though, if I have a whole page or column sitting there clean in front of me and I just start, by the time I hit three things, there is a cascading deluge of stuff I become aware of and am happy to note.
Journaling gratitude (maybe especially by hand) becomes meditation for me, where my thoughts stop being fearful or controlling or trying to troubleshoot, and instead become observations of good things all around me (and in me and part of me) that just ARE.
A lot of people seem to think gratitude lists need to be about BIG things, or unusual things, but man … I almost always am most grateful for and start out with simple daily life-sustaining or unglamorous stuff that never gets old to me. Like water.
CLEAN water. RUNNING water. Indoor plumbing. The way we are able to set garbage out in a can on the street and some people come and swoop it up and take it away. TOILET PAPER!
One of the things I’m most grateful for in the “fountain pen community” online is the invitation, permission, and examples people provide to DO THIS: take notes and copy favorite book passages, inspiring quotes, song lyrics and WHATEVER. It helps to reinforce your values, give you something to look back on and study, and in general writing by hand itself increases the likelihood we’ll remember what we’ve written down more than if we just throw a heart on it on social media or HEAR it and think yeah whoah man that’s deep – super cool — I’m going to remember that. Maybe. But your chances are better if you write it down in your own handwriting.
