Is an Attitude of Gratitude Just an Empty Platitude?

Do you ever feel sorry for yourself?  Ever want to throw a huge pity party, where you would be the only invited guest??  Come on, admit it, maybe just once or twice you have felt a twinge or two of childish sulkiness.  On the website www.personal-development.com the writer asks this brilliantly simple question:

"Do you rise and shine, or do you rise and whine?"

When I started on my Happiness Quest, I was definitely part of the rise and whine brigade.  In fact, I was so accomplished at self-pity that I easily could have been the commander of this unit.  I am a very, very fortunate person - I have a husband who matches me wit for wit and has never said a single unkind word to me, I have children who have launched into adulthood with success, a job I enjoy, a beautiful home, a loving extended family, good friends, good health...and the list goes on.

It was really my refection on the dichotomy between this obvious state of good fortune and my entrenched self-pity that launched me on my Quest to begin with.  Three months into this journey of self-discovery I have learned a lot about how I got to my own big pity party to begin with.  In The How of Happiness, Sonja Lyubomirsky talks about some practical strategies that can help to raise an individual's happiness "set point", in other words to use intention to enhance the level of happiness that you are genetically predisposed to. 

I am focusing on 5 of these strategies, starting with "Savouring Life's Joys".  Lyubomirsky uses a great Thornton Wilder quote to illustrate the concept:

"My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but to just enjoy your ice cream while it is on your plate."

While I think this is a great strategy, frankly none of the specific joy-savouring tasks that Lyubomirsky suggests resonated with me.  What has been working is extremely simple.  I am keeping a journal in which I record the joyful, happy, or at the very least, pleasant things that happened to me in a day.  I keep it on my bedside table and this is the last activity of the day for me.  I only write very brief descriptors - nothing longer than a phase really, to desribe the moment.  It's more about the act of ending the day reflecting on positives than dwelling on negatives.  Things as simple as:  "our neighbour shovelled our driveway", "lunch with a friend", "Ontario beat Manitoba in curling today :-)", etc.

This is leading me back to feeling grateful for the blessings in my life and that in turn instantly improves my attitude...