So lately, I’ve been doing these things called gratitude and laughing journals, and I usually do them at the end of the night before I go to sleep.
I just kind of dictate into a note the things that I’m grateful for and the things that made me laugh, the previous whatever 17 hours that I was awake.
But today I wanted to do it in this little short video, and it’s just going to be pretty personal stuff that may mean nothing to anybody. But here goes.
So today, I’m grateful that I have a roof over my head, and I have food in my belly, and I have a lot of friends and family who love me, and I have just so much bounty I’m my life.
And it’s not that I’m rich, and I’m not even really middle class, to tell you the truth. I don’t have a ton of money but you know, I have more than so many people in the world.
I have my health and I have my mental health and I have my emotional health.
And I continue to just work on myself. So I’m very grateful for the fact that I’m able to work on improving myself and doing any kind of personal development at all, because at my age, and all the things I’ve been through, and all the stupid things I’ve done and said and thought over the years, you know, hasn’t led to me being in the streets, or addicted to something, or sick, or any number of problems that go on in this world.
I’m on Facebook every day, and I see all the things that a lot of people are going through, and maybe you’re one of those people.
And like everybody, when I see all the things that are hard in this world, that makes me cry. And it makes me feel grateful.
And it’s not that I haven’t gone through things. I have.
But I mean, look at me here, I am in this warm house.
Anyway, so I’m grateful for my house and my health and food and water — clean water. A lot of places don’t even have clean water. Even in America.
I’m glad that there’s not some train derailed outside my house.
One of the things that I’m really grateful for today, for some reason, is that anybody even puts up with me.
And I’m not trying to get your sympathy, I’m not trying to make you say that I’m great or that I’m worthy.
I know all this stuff about being worthy, I tell myself every day that I’m worthy to be loved and have people in my life and to continue to have a good existence. I go to therapy for this, as I’ve mentioned many times.
So I’m just saying that me at my worst is … I don’t even know what that is. People who’ve been close to me probably could answer that question better than I can. And I just feel like this weight today that I’m just so lucky, just so lucky that anybody wants to do anything with me or even be in my life.
Anyway, laughs — I’ve laughed 300 times today, because I made this video where I do laugh therapy.
I’m going to put that out tomorrow and so that’s the next video I’m putting out.
I’ve been doing a lot of laughing today.
And I guess I feel a little sensitive today, and that’s just the way life is.
I will have a lot more things to be grateful for later tonight, of course.
There are probably those among you who do these gratitude journals and laughter journals. I don’t remember where I picked that up from. It was probably Brene Brown or somebody. A lot of people do this stuff. It’s not reinventing the wheel.
I was just going to write this, like on Facebook and blogs and stuff. And I just thought:
The world is videos now. So I’m going to do a video, and then I will transcribe it, and then you can choose what you want to watch or read.
I have found that when I make videos, it helps me because then I watch these videos a few times when I’m editing, and then a few times after I post them, and they are reminders to me.
So when I made this video, so many days ago, about boundaries and therapy and stuff … I’ve watched that five or 10 times, just to remind myself of everything in life.
Last year, I told my therapist about all of the diary stuff I do and all the journaling I do.
And then she goes:
“Do you ever go read that stuff?”
And I said, no. And she said:
“Why not?”
And I said:
“Well, I guess because I already went through it.”
And then she encouraged me to go back and watch videos, and read things that I write, because it gives me a sense of my journey or something, and it’s a reminder.
So it keeps me honest.
I try to think of myself as the most honest person I can be at all times with myself and people in my life.
I’m sure some people watch me do this and think like:
“What do you want out of this?”
I’ve actually had, several years ago, people say that. Like:
“What are you trying to get out of this? What are you trying to monetize?”
You know what? I’ll worry about money later. I’m not trying to monetize anything right now. I’m just trying to be a person in the world and that includes online. That’s just the way the world is.
That sounds defensive. I didn’t want to talk about any of this kind of stuff today. I just wanted to talk about gratitude, so let’s just get back to this.
Im grateful for you. I’m grateful for me, I’m grateful for everyone who has ever been in my life. Every animal that’s been in my life, every rock, every car, every rainstorm, every sundrop, everything, I’m grateful for everything.
I consider myself just the most luckiest person.
I can honestly say I don’t hate anybody I’ve ever known. I’ve had people screw me over, just like you have, I don’t hate any of them. I’ve had people that were good people but did stupid bad things. I don’t hate them. I don’t hate felines that have scratched me or dogs that have bitten me. I don’t hate existence for being hard, I don’t hate enlightenment for troubling me. I don’t hate the pain that I feel sometimes. I don’t hate anything. I just want to get through it and let it go through me.
I just want to be a grateful person today.
If anybody out there thinks that I hate them, I don’t. I assure you. I love everybody. Including the people who think I don’t. Just because … whatever … life is hard, you know?
I have this theory that everything in the world is 50/50.
Amazon, let’s start with Amazon. Amazon has a 50/50 proposition. The good 50 is that you can start your own business, and then on Amazon you can actually have your own autonomy as a business person on Amazon. You can buy things on Amazon and have them brought to your house.
But on the other side, you’ve got truck drivers for Amazon going to the bathroom in bottles and having cameras tracking their eyeballs so that they don’t look left or right, or whatever. I mean there’s a million other reasons.
Anyway, so you could go on with everything. I’m probably 50/50. I’m not saying you are. I would never pass that judgment. I’m just saying like it’s yin yang, the world is a 50/50 proposition.
Life is this 50/50 proposition. And I’m grateful for all of it.
Everyday, I pray this gratitude. I thank God for all the good and the bad and the happy and the sad, and all the things that we have, and all the dumb and good, great things that we do and say, and think.
I used to be an atheist, and I’m not really, you know, maybe I thought I was an atheist and never was, I don’t know.
Anyway, this is a really roiling message.
I meant to do a 60-second gratitude journal, but I’m such a blabbermouth I can’t just say four things.
This is one of the reasons why anybody that’s in my life has to put up with this nonsense. You know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
There’s nothing more to say right now.
I love you very much. I hope you’re having a really great day and a lot of fun and I hope …
I hope you’re not beating yourself up.
dougable 