Gratitude Journaling for Cynics
A crash course in gratitude with 100 fill-in-the-blank prompts
I’m the kind of Catholic who’s always looking for shortcuts. A few years ago, I reasoned that I could replace my formulaic bedtime prayers with a recitation of things I was grateful for. Thank you for the food I ate and the clothes I wore, I began — like a hungry Barbie, those have always been my top priorities — and I improvised the rest until I got to a list of five. These grateful incantations were far more fun than the Our Father (then again, that’s a low bar), so I stuck with them. Eventually, I graduated to gratitude journaling.
Last week, I was grateful for Michael, who woke up at 6:30 am to help me apply for a German driver’s license. As we chatted on the U-Bahn, the conversation turned to social anxiety stories. Michael confessed that he had a hard time finding good things about the world or himself. Whenever he tried to conjure up something to be grateful for, Michael either came up short or started dwelling on something negative.
My conversation with Michael made me realize that, for many, coming up with a list of things to be grateful for can be daunting. More poignantly, those who have the most to gain by gratitude journaling —the cynical, anxious, or pessimistic — might be least likely to take up the habit, whether out of…
