Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world. – John Milton
For the last several years, I’ve made it a point to not make any New Year’s resolutions. My reasoning centers around two different ideas. One, everyday we wake in the morning we are intersecting with new. It bothers me that there is this belief that change can only occur when the calendar moves from one year to the next. Really, change can happen anytime you desire. Second, resolutions tend to lose meaning really quick. Surveys suggest that most people give up on their resolution by day ten.
Personally, a more meaningful way to start my year is to choose a word that I need to pursue with abandon. Last year my word was compassion. This year my word is gratitude.
Gratitude. How is it defined? It is the act of being thankful. I think pushing yourself toward gratitude allows you to concentrate on the present. This lesson came with difficulty. In 2007, this is what I remember. My father, frail from lung cancer, couldn’t breathe. With very obvious signs of distress we drove him to the hospital. He was admitted overnight for treatment. When did this happen? On December 31, 2007. New Year’s Eve. I remember Dick Clark counting down to 2008 on the small television and looking out the window. My companion that night was stale coffee in a styrofoam cup. There wasn’t a crowd or cake, but the beeps of monitors and orange jello. My attempts to converse with my father were futile. When you can’t breathe and you really realize that you are dying, there isn’t much incentive to express your feelings. I made a makeshift bed on the floor with a white sheet and travel pillow. As I heard my father struggle to breathe, my stomach sank. In that minute dread filled my heart. I remember thinking, “Is he going to make it to the next New Year celebration?” I wasn’t certain at that point.
How did gratitude eventually find its way to me? Every New Year’s eve, i think about my father, his struggles, and what I witnessed. Every New Year’s Eve I am filled with a sense of gratitude. Life is so incredibly hard. We are unprepared for what lays ahead. So why not invoke gratitude for all the wonder in our lives. I need to release imperfections and turn my attention to what is right and filled with wonder. When we feel not enough or slighted it is difficult to pay attention and define where gratitude exists.
Gratitude. I am rallying around it.
Welcome! I am a lawyer turned freelance writer, essayist, and editor. On staff at Literary Mama and the co-founder and co-editor of the literary journal, The Sunlight Press, my essays and reported work have appeared in The Washington Post, The Lily, Saveur, Civil Eats, Brain, Child, ESPN and elsewhere. I am currently at work on a memoir on grief and culture and how it provides perspective on life’s ordinary graces. I invite you to appreciate the ordinary with me. I hope my daily practice of seeing the magic in the mundane helps you celebrate and find more of these moments in your life too.
Gratitude is the perfect word for 2013, I think. I’ve been thinking a lot about gratitude lately. I think when we pay attention to what we are thankful for, we become happier. Happy New Year!
I agree with you that change can happen at any point during the year. I wonder if our attempts to devise new year’s resolutions is just part of the bigger journey in changing to someone we can look at in the mirror. Perhaps if we didn’t pressure ourselves so much to perfection we wouldn’t hold ourselves to unrealistic expectations.
As for your word of the year, I think it’s a beautiful choice. I’m grateful to have you as a blog friend. 🙂
Rudri, I really like this idea of finding your word for the year. Without realizing it, I had come up with my own of “kindness.” As the new year approached that is the word I kept saying to myself over and over, that this year I will be kind…not nice, not polite, but truly kind…in my thoughts and in the words I choose to use when I am feeling hurt and frustrated.
I am moved by how you have found gratitude in the face of such a loss as that of your father, when the most natural and basic, instinctive feeling must have been anger and indignance. I look forward to reading how you embrace gratitude in the months to come. I am sure I can learn from you.
You picked a good one! I’m still struggling to find mine…
gratitude is not only an important word to live by it is an important attitude. have a good year. kelley—the road goes ever ever on
still feeling my way around for my word, but gratitude is as good as it gets. i think for me, it’s not really the “new year” that inspires it, as it is a time of year when things slow down a bit, and it feels natural to focus on a clean slate after the chaos of the holidays.
plus when i see the literal blank slate of my calendar, it makes me feel both giddy and lost. change feels possible.
happy new year to you!
What a perfect word. If we focus on what we are thankful for, everything else seems silly and kind of melts away, doesn’t it?
I love your attitude and your one word theme. Change really can happen anytime, anywhere, under any circumstance. I’ve had it happen to me, sometimes with more significance than others. We are in charge of our own destinies, and to have gratitude in our hearts every day for the opportunities, as uncertain as they are at times, can help us grow and show more appreciation, compassion, and kindness to those around us. I have no doubt that you will learn and grow from this year’s one word theme. I hope you post about it often. Dropping in from Mama Kat’s.
Rudri, I think you chose a wonderful word for focus this year. In fact, I almost chose gratitude myself, but I kind of already remind myself of gratitudes daily because it is so easy to take life for granted. Wishing you a wonderful years of daily gratitudes, Rudri!
Gratitude is a great companion. Good choice. When I read about your father, my heart is with you. xoxo
It’s not a resolution. It’s your theme! And i love the theme you’ve chosen for this year! I’m going to adopt it for myself. Then, when others join in we can call in a revolution! Thanks for starting it!
I love this, Rudri. I love that you’ve shared your story and that your word is so calm and real and attainable and a great reminder to us all that we have so very very much to be grateful for, to share space on this Earth at the same time. Happy 2013 to you and your family!
I adopted the same practice a few years ago, too. I love your word choice for this year; I’ve chosen embrace. I hope we both truly LIVE our words this year! Stopping by from Mama Kat’s.
Gratitude is a wonderful word.
I find that I personally prefer “appreciation” as it seems to encompass a broader spectrum and feel more active to me – no doubt a distinction I’ve picked up along the way as in art appreciation or music appreciation, both of which involve activities that fill me up and leave me with a sense of wonder about life.
Perhaps that’s as good as it gets. Hanging onto to a piece of our childhood wonder.
Gratitude is my word for 2013 too. I am using the 5-year book you gave me at tea to record my daily gratitudes. I’ve always recognized things to be grateful for in my life, yet didn’t feel I officially acknowledged them. 2013, the year of declared gratitude.