Gratitude Journal #4

Apparently, you can train your brain to be happier by keeping a gratitude journal, so I am giving it a go. 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.) 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 year 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 #4: Cellphone Cameras

I will be honest. I am not always grateful for cellphones. Sometimes, I do not want people to have the ability to reach me. Sometimes, I would be better off if I did not expect to be able to reach people all the time. And while yes, we can all turn off our phones (or put them in airplane mode), if we choose to, how often do we do so when we do not need to?

However, if I am going to have this piece of technology that I carry with me pretty much at all times, I love that it has uses other than as just a phone. I actually do not get online with my phone except in extremely rare cases, but I do use it as a music player, and more importantly, I use it as a camera.

I remember my first camera. I remember the first picture I ever took (my father, from the waste down, because I did not quite understand the view finder). I remember how much it cost me (a full month’s allowance) to pay to ship that first camera back from the hotel I accidentally left it in on that first vacation.

I love taking pictures. I have no where near the eye for artistic composition that my brother has, but that does not diminish my enjoyment of taking pictures of pretty or interesting things. And when I was running a pet blog, I often simply had picture posts. I would take a camera with me to the dog park.

I still have a couple of really nice digital cameras. And if I go on a major site seeing vacation, at least one of those will travel with me. And I keep meaning to bring one to campus in spring, when the cherry blossoms are in bloom. But the truth is, for the most part, I do not notice the quality difference, except in extreme closeups, between those cameras and the camera on my cellphone.

I really enjoy having the ability, at any time, to take a picture. I take a lot of pictures of Mount Rainier – pretty much, if the mountain is out, I am going to take a picture of it. I like to take pictures of flowers in bloom around campus, not just the cherry blossoms. I take pictures of pretty skies, and billboards that make me laugh and squirrels. And the dogs. I take more pictures of the dogs even than the Mountain. I love the ability to share what I am seeing with my friends and family.

I also really like the casualness of it. I do not have to have planned to take pictures in advance in order to take a picture. The options is just there. And given that I am the person who cried at the idea of not being able to take pictures at Stonehenge, and therefore spent something like $50 on a disposable camera from their gift shot, because the Rosetta Stone basically killed our digital camera, yes, this actually comes up. I love that I can, at any moment, say, I want to remember this moment, and take a picture.

So especially this week, when the Seattle weather has been gorgeous, and I have taken pictures of the mountain just about every day (in order to remember it when the gray settles back in this weekend), I am grateful for that camera on my cell phone.