Gratitude Journal Experiment: Week 4

In this experiment, I’m doing 6 gratitude journal entries on my blog to see if it gets me more in touch with happiness. You can read more about how to do a gratitude journal here.

For each entry, I’m going to write 3 to 5 things that made me feel grateful during the week. Please note that I write my posts a week ahead of time so it may be a little outdated when it’s published!

A lesson in the first snow

We got off lucky, the arctic blast didn’t descend upon us fully, and only brought us some flurries. I stood on the porch, enjoying the first snow, and contemplated my life so far.

As a teenager, I was deathly resistant to the thought of living the format life – study, work, date, work, marry, reproduce, work a lot more, grow old, die. I thought something was wrong with that, I just didn’t know what.

In retrospect, there’s nothing wrong with living the so-called format life. What I was really afraid of is living mindlessly. You know, just going where everyone’s going, doing what everyone else is doing. To me, that’s a life wasted and it freaked me out.

So I try my best to live out my convictions. I thought about my beliefs and what I want. It obviously didn’t serve me all that well by society’s standards, but it brought me a different life and perspective. According to Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken”, I too, took the path less traveled by.

However, there’s nothing noble or preferable or better in choosing one path over the other. There isn’t a single right path for everyone – it all depends on what matters to you. Similarly, there’s no single definition of success – it too depends on what’s important to you.

The problem comes in if you’re on one path wishing you were on the other, or if you pick a path that’s unsuitable for your disposition and values. And yet, the human condition is such that we can always make peace with “mistakes”, and make a new path. The itinerary isn’t fixed. Hey, there’s nothing to worry about.

My grasp on life has relaxed so much. It’s a relief. I may not have anything in my name, but if I died tomorrow, I’ll be fine, because I was mindful enough to live the way I prefer to. And to not be so caught up with the outcome. I’m thankful I can say that. I’m thankful for this lesson.

Minimalism

I haven’t been writing about minimalism, but I feel it’s only normal. If you talk too much about minimalism… do you go against what it represents? Anyway, most of my inner growth happened after I started minimizing my life and reclaiming my focus on my mind, rather than possession.

We don’t realize how much time and attention things can take up in our minds. I’m really grateful that I started decluttering 7 years ago. It got me into minimalism and shaped the way I bought things and spent money, allowing me to save more money than I’d have been able to otherwise.

Otherwise, I’d not be able to spend two years unemployed and not worry too much about needing a new phone. Thank you, minimalism.

I love minimalism. I love not thinking about new bags, new shoes, a new phone, unless something gets damaged and I need to replace it. They always say everything in life exists on a spectrum, and it’s true. I’ve slid to the other end of the material consumption spectrum and discovered the “high” in low consumption.

The high comes from the fierce focus I have on the non-material aspects of life. I’ve directed my focus to people, stories, writing, hobbies, and most importantly, intellectual and emotional development. In return, my inner life is a lot richer than it was before I minimized my life.

I’m high on a lot of things – music, weather, quiet, coffee, conversations, interactions with animals, and lessons in the snow… None of them costs much, but boy do they make me happy. I love it. I’ll always be thankful for minimalism.

My Phone

I had a Sony Xperia Z3 for 4.5 years. Honestly, it would’ve lasted longer if I didn’t keep dropping it. My bad. I dropped it last week reaching for it to turn off the alarm, and the touchscreen stopped working completely.

For the past 3 years, my family has been encouraging me to “upgrade” my phone. Like everyone else, I’ve had a new phone every 18 – 24 months for the first decade or so that I owned a phone. That’d make the Z3 my 7th or 8th phone in 16 years? That’s a lot of phones! Can you imagine how many phones there are out there in the world?

According to a site, there are 5.11 billion mobile users in the world as of January 2019. Many of these users replace their phones every year or 2.

It’s unsustainable, especially when recycling isn’t done properly, if at all. So I hung on to my Z3 as long as I could. I bogged it down with tonnes of music and photos, but it never lagged, and hardly froze. I’ve dropped it so many times, but I never got the spiderwebbed crack I’ve seen on so many phones. The worst it sustained was a fine crack in one corner of the screen, barely visible.

I’m thankful that this phone has served me so well for so long, and it’s beautiful too. It’s been to 5 countries with me, and I’ve taken many pictures and shared many statuses with it.

At the moment, I’m waiting for a SIM card adaptor that’ll allow me to use my older Sony phone, the Xperia Z. (Yes, I’m a Sony fangirl.) I don’t know how it’ll work out with new apps. I’m not too optimistic, but I’ll give it a try. For now, I’m actually quite comfortable without a phone. It’s like a little vacation for my brain.

Reflections

This week, I found myself appreciating some of my qualities and feeling a little weird about it – I’ve become so used to looking at my insufficiencies! This gratitude journal entry turned out to be a good reminder for me to love myself.

Maybe we should take some time to appreciate ourselves every now and then. And be grateful for the person we are.

Perhaps that’s the key to self-acceptance and self-love.

Before you go, I’d like to invite you to think about these three questions. Does your life reflect your values? What’s your favorite quality about yourself? What are you grateful for this week?

I wish you much peace and happiness!

If you’ve enjoyed this post, do check out Week 3’s gratitude journal too! And don’t forget to subscribe!