World Gratitude Day

Kris Evergreen here. Monday — and it’s World Gratitude Day, which gives this particular Monday a useful assignment.

You know my position on gratitude: it’s not about forcing good feelings over bad ones. Gratitude done badly is bypassing — a way of not looking at what’s hard. Gratitude done well is the opposite. It’s looking at everything, including what’s right, which your brain will otherwise skip entirely. The negativity bias is standard equipment; gratitude is the manual correction.

So today’s assignment, Monday edition: three specific things. Not big abstract ones — specific. Not health but the knee that carried you up the stairs without complaint. Not family but the exact thing someone said Saturday that made you laugh. Specificity is what separates real gratitude from a greeting card.

Three specific things, noticed on purpose, on a Monday. Let the week begin from there.

Specificity is what separates real gratitude from a greeting card. Three specific things — today.

What are your three specific things this morning?