Gratitude Journal #1

Apparently, you can train your brain to be happier by keeping a gratitude journal. I am a little skeptical of this, but my employer health and wellness program believes it helps and gives me points (which I am earning in order to receive 50% off my health insurance deductible next year) for keeping one. And so, I figured even if it does not actually train me to be happier, it is likely not going to make me less happy. And here we start my gratitude journal.

My goal is post about 100 things I am grateful for over the course of the year. (This should average out to just a little over 2/week, as I am getting started in week 4.) However, I am going to try and stay away from the standard family/friends/pets. Please know I absolutely am grateful for my family, friends, and pets. I would not have made it through the past couple of years without each of them. But if I am trying to train myself to be happier, then I want to start recognizing the smaller things in life that I am grateful for.

Gratitude Entry #1: People who are working when I am not

Back in the day, I worked in a video rental store – like a Blockbuster, but local. Our stores were open 9a-1a every day, 365 days a year – except for the one year the store managers convinced upper management to let us open at Noon on Christmas day. The last position I held for that company was as a shift supervisor. I worked Tuesday – Saturday nights, 5p-1:30a, closing the store. Friday and Saturday nights were our busiest nights.

Back before Netflix and Chill, there was “Let’s order a pizza and rent a movie.” I was in my early 20s. I worked on the nights when other people my age were out at the bars and clubs. I was the one who helped them out when they were looking for that perfect movie to just have a quiet evening in with friends or a significant other. And truth is, most of my friends also worked service jobs, also worked swings, also worked weekends. So overall, it worked for my life. But more than once I had to turn down an invitation to do something on a Friday night because I was working.

And now I work one of those regular 8a-5p, Monday-Friday jobs, with state and federal holidays off. Last week, I stopped at a Starbucks drive through at 6:30a to get my chai latte, and there were two young women working the store to give me what I wanted. Two weekends ago, I took my dogs to the vet for their annual check up on a Saturday afternoon. On Martin Luther King Jr Day, I went to get a mani/pedi with my BFF. And then we went out to lunch and over to a bakery for desert. And at all of these places were people working, people working on a day when I was getting paid to not work.

In one of our previous neighborhoods, we had a 24/7/365 Safeway. And I cannot tell you how grateful I was that there were open on Thanksgiving and Christmas, when we realized we had forgotten key ingredients to dinner. (Seriously, one year I was at that Safeway FOUR different times on Christmas day.)

While I know these businesses are open at these times because it makes money for the business, I also know that most people do not work these shifts, work holidays, if they have other good options. (Though, one of the nice things about that Safeway was that we were in a very multi-cultural neighborhood, and I can safely say the majority, if not all, of the staff working on Christmas Day did not celebrate Christmas, so they were mostly happy for the holiday pay.)

My life is made more convenient by the fact that there are people working when I am not. And that convenience translates pretty smoothly into happiness.

So for my first Gratitude Journal Entry, I would just like to tell all the people working the early morning and late night shifts, those working weekends and holidays, Thank You. I appreciate your ability to get up at 4a so that you can serve me coffee at 6:30a. I appreciate your willingness to not get home until after midnight so that I can grocery shop at 8p. And while I can now just rent a movie without leaving my couch, I still cannot order a pizza without someone being there to make it, and likely deliver it to my door.

So yes, THANK YOU to those who are working when I am not. I am grateful for you.