Gratitude

When it comes down to it, in nearly every survey I’ve ever read and in all my conversations with friends, when asked what the most important thing in life is, most of us will say family and friends. They are the people who are there to pull us through the dark times, to celebrate the good times and to be there for all the ordinary times in the middle.

We tend to remember how much they mean to us in the dark time and in the good times, but what about the ordinary times in the middle? In the day to day rush of life it’s so easy to forget the joy and support that they bring us in so many every day ways. A cup of coffee or bowl of cereal filled in the morning, a lift to the bus stop, a text during the day to see how we are going, remembering what was on during your day and asking how it went.

These are all little ways of saying I love you and I care. But in the Hollywood days of romantic movies and commercialisation, where grand gestures are portrayed as normal these lovely little gestures can become expected rather than appreciated. And in the busy rush of life, we can fail to notice them or appreciate them. I know I’m guilty of this. So this week I decided to take notice and express gratitude for all these little things in my relationship with my partner and it was wonderful. It’s not to say we have a whole lot of conflict in our relationship, in fact we have very little, but there’s a subtle change that happens when you say thank you and mean it.

We were recently away for the weekend, and my partner was shopping with me for most of Saturday. I knew there were a thousand things he’d rather do but there he was with me shopping and doing it cheerfully and I was really grateful for this and thanked him at the end of the day. And he loved that.

I figure that when you say thanks for the little things there’s a recognition by your partner, kids or friend that you know they’ve made an effort because you’re special to them and you like it, and that in turn makes them feel special. It creates a positive cycle of appreciation that can only help to make each day more enjoyable. It is, after all, the little things in life that matter.