something I am grateful for today

Today I am 55 -- which means I now qualify for a senior's discount in many places. (Although fewer places than there used to be -- couldn't help noticing as I got closer to 55, a lotta places started changing their senior discount mark to 60. I feel like I am a cat and they are a dangly piece of yarn.)

Long before today I realized that I had reached an age where getting old didn't bother me. Instead it tells me that I continue to avoid the only other alternative currently available to us, so I'm good.

taking stock

I just checked, and it appears that my first gratitude post appeared on March 31, 2009.

Thinking about sutff today, I would say that I am happier with my life now than I was back when I was: younger, in better health and more energetic, and had more free time and fewer responsibilities than today. I also believe that I am now coping with my tendency to depression more effectively than I did even when I was on meds for it (and they were a major turning point for me, I would say those meds saved my life and made all the difference in the world for me). Objectively, I had more reasons to be happy in the past than I do now, but it doesn't seem to be working out that way.

I find it tempting to attribute these improvements in my life to the gratitude posts. I realize that it could just be coincidence, and these changes could simply be a result of better perspective, experience, or whatnot. But I confess that I started doing the posts because I had read that this was an exercise that would make a noticeable improvement in your mind and in your life. I went into it hoping it would work, but not really sure that I believed it -- figured there was no harm in trying.

If things really are so different for me now on account of the gratitude, I will admit that I never dreamed they would make such a marked difference as this. Whatever the true explanation is, I find that I am in a good place in my life now and I do not take it for granted.

Thus endeth the sermon.