Simple Abundance
During the most chaotic spans of my life, I’ve kept a gratitude journal. When my kids were little and I was building a college basketball program, I kept one religiously. It was my calibrator. Every day an avalanche of things that either came out of left field or simply did not go as planned would pile into the front few pews of the sanctuary of my mind. When I’d lay down at night, my head would be packed with all that had gone wrong. I knew a lot had gone right too, but for some reason it didn’t just naturally land in the front rows. So I had to put it there.
Sarah Ban Breathnach’s gratitude journal was my prompt.
Right before sleep, I’d pull out the hardcover book that became a phenomenon in the late 90’s and write down five specific things that I was grateful for that day. The book was a glorified hardbound calendar that had five blank lines underneath every day of the year. Every week had a lead quote atop the first page of delineated days, and every month had a full page dedicated to a sentiment regarding thankfulness, in three times larger font. Sales of it went nuts. The Simple Abundance tidal wave engulfed all who were remotely interested in paying better attention and even some who didn’t fit in that category but just felt pressured to dive into something Oprah winked at on TV. Breathnach’s gratitude book became a NYTimes bestseller.
Doesn’t it seem like a legal pad or the back of a torn-open envelope could have done the very same thing? Of course it could have. But it didn’t. And it doesn’t. Things worth counting and keeping cry for a hallowed home.
I don’t know if it’s simply the palpable awareness of blessings or the measuring of the good against the not so much that provides such value. My hunch is that it’s probably both. But gratitude tabulation is like a pair of hands on my shoulders that makes me tighten my abs and lengthen my neck. The practice makes me stand erect. And when I do, I can see so much better—not only where I’ve been but where I want to go. Sometimes inside the clutter those are both eclipsed from view.
I open my old hardbound blessing books every year around this time to peruse what I once wrote. Some entries were made in pencil, though most were done in pen, with a few random in crayon. I can feel how tired I was. And how happy. As I read back over a month or two in bulk, I also realize how the practice of compilation bent the light, kind of like the curved glass of a microscope does. And in so doing, how it subtly shifted the way I saw my world.
Among those things listed in my late 1990’s gratitude books are simple things like “rain.” And “red cheeked children.” And “belly laughs.” Every now and then there is a one time specific entry like “negative test result” or “my dad’s face at grandparents’ day” or “tournament air—the way it smells when a championship is in the works.” One day had only one line of the five filled out. It said, “That today is over and tomorrow I can try again.”
Some days the best we can do is turn the bad things inside out.
One-of-a-kind moments of both celebration and contrite resignation were dispersed throughout my books, but mostly the entries were just everyday stuff. The things we gloss right over as we run, as if there’s somewhere more important to be than where we already are. My Simple Abundance Journals were the reins on a too fast life.
As I unfurled the covers of my Breathnach books this past weekend, the gratitude trinkets spilled out like Christmas ornaments. I remembered how Chandler as a two-year old used to hug me tight right after she threw a fit, and I’d forgotten what Colton’s face looked like right before he threw a pitch. Specific “where and when” moments, like that ornament I hang on the tree that we got at the San Diego Zoo, tumbled out and took me back. But there were also lots of “tears” and “hugs” and “sunsets” and “giggles” that could have fallen out of anybody’s books. Pedestrian blessings (if there is such a thing) that we look over unless something is compelling us to stop and write them down.
Though I have written gratitude lists on and off throughout my adult life, the Simple Abundance Journals are the only ones who’ve stood the test of time. Their durable binding has helped them make the long haul, but the fact that they were designated spaces where I could park my joy, or at the least my momentary perspective, is why they still live in my drawer.
And it occurs to me now as I re-read those lists, that they were maybe as much of a want as they were a need. Certainly, they forced accurate accounting of highs and lows while providing order for my days and a governor for my pace, but they also gave me a place to put things I didn’t want to lose. Gratitude journaling has a way of crystallizing the vapors before they get away. Because I wrote out bullet lists, my blessings turned into items I could carry around in my pocket or take out of the box to play with many years on down the road. They became forever things.
Blessings that get counted live to bless another day. They layer up and replicate, serving the moment, framing the future, and wrapping up the past. No wonder the Bible tells us to count them one by one. As such, it’s no real surprise that the book without many original words became a multi-million seller that spawned a thriving industry. Abundance is simply everywhere…though odds are we might miss it if we fail to write it down.