I've come to think of gratitude, strengths, optimism, Appreciative Inquiry, high quality connections and more as parts of what seems to be an appreciative stance toward life. The practice on regularly noting these moments goes by many names. The Army calls it "Hunt the Good Stuff". Marty Seligman used "Count Your Blessings". With lawyers, I call it "Right-Spotting" (to contrast to "issue spotting")
Rich Gardner, Jr. in his column "Count Your Blessings" in today's Wall Street Journal, talks about this. (BTW, getting to sit and read the complimentary copy of the WSJ at my Fairfield Inn's free breakfast while I'm stranded in NYC until tomorrow after my flight home yesterday was cancelled could be on my list tonight!) He describes his family's habit of going around the car after a trip away and talking about the best part of the trip. Sometimes, they even take multiple turns. He notes that this habit attunes one to notice and store up the good times, an effect others of us have noticed when we follow a regular pattern of recording what goes right in our lives. Enjoy the article!
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