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Comment by yamazakiwi | Hacker News Reader

I've gotten in the habit of reflecting on gratitude whenever I'm sad or in a bad mood. It really changes things around for me personally. You don't have to force yourself, just thinking about gratitude in general is useful.

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My wife and I do this regardless of mood: Each night during our moments of quiet time together, we talk about a few things that happened during the previous 12 hours that we're grateful for. This has become one of the best parts of the day for us.

Reviewing the day with gratitude is a core tenet of Ignatian mindfulness. I do an expanded version of the talk with my wife, with God, using a version of the instructions shown at https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-exa...

“My Uncle Alex, who is up in Heaven now, one of the things he found objectionable about human beings was that they so rarely noticed it when times were sweet. We could be drinking lemonade in the shade of an apple tree in the summertime, and Uncle Alex would interrupt the conversation to say, "If this isn't nice, what is?"

So I hope that you will do the same for the rest of your lives. When things are going sweetly and peacefully, please pause a moment, and then say out loud, "If this isn't nice, what is?”

-- Kurt Vonnegut

This is one of the tenets of Seneca’s stoicism, as I understand. “It could be worse, therefore I’m grateful it is not…”

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