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Practicing Gratitude

A few weeks ago, my boyfriend installed a new app on my iPhone for me. And by “for me,” I mean that before I noticed, he sneakily managed to take my iPhone from me, navigate to the app store, download the app, and then all innocently ask me to type in my iTunes password. I petulantly did so, knowing that he had purposely bypassed me in this particular app acquisition process.

But, like always, he knows what was best for me.

The app is called Gratitude. I know, I know, I had the same reaction. We now need an iPhone app for expressing gratitude? What is the world coming to?

The Gratitude Journal, whose tagline is “zen at your fingertips,” is best described as a little private notebook, that you open up before you go to sleep each night, and reflect on the day by listing out the things that day for which you’re grateful. When you’re done, you can rate the day on a five-star scale, and even add a picture from your photo album to memorialize the day further.

My boyfriend thinks I need this app. Mainly because, in my personal life, I often have a really hard time seeing the bigger picture when I’m trapped down with the devil in the details. Sometimes I will have had a perfectly decent day, but then something small and likely insignificant will tip me over and all of the happiness from earlier will inevitably pour out and pool around my ankles. I’m exaggerating. But only barely.

Another reason my boyfriend thinks I need this app is because the last time this happened, I was tearfully lamenting, in breaths between uncontrollable sobs, that I couldn’t quantify “happiness” as a value on the spreadsheet I was making for my cost-benefit analysis of the problem.  Since Gratitude lets you rate days on a five-star scale, he incentivizes that, after using the app long enough, I will indeed eventually be able to quantify happiness. Besides, studies show that practicing gratitude can increase happiness by 25%. How could I go wrong?

My first entry in this experiment was written after a exhausting, long, and acutely stressful day. I only wrote it because my boyfriend sat me down, handed me my iPhone, and told me simply, without any room for appeal, “Do your Gratitude Journal for today.”

So, my Gratitude journal for January 30th looks like this:

• Not having a nervous breakdown
• John flying in to help me move
• Being so happy to see John at the airport and feeling more calm immediately
• John being the best boyfriend ever and helping me pack up and move
• John being patient with me when I’m acting out due to stress
• So, basically, John
• Making the tough decision to move even at the risk of losing money, which generally immobilizes me

To my great surprise, I rated the day as three-star. Only minutes before writing the entry, I felt like I was in the pits. And only seconds after writing the entry, I felt lighter and well, happier. Look at all those great things I have to be thankful for! How can I be unhappy when I look at that list and realize I have the world’s greatest boyfriend? (Suddenly, his motivation becomes clear.)

In all seriousness though, John is one part of my life that I greatly appreciate, and I think he would agree that I do well at appreciating him. However, there are all of these other good things in my life too, that I tend to overlook. And that’s what he is trying to help me realize through my use of this app.

About a week later, my entry for February 5th reads:

• Battlestar Galactica
• Remembering to make John talk about his day, because I want to hear and he wants me to listen
• My dad being sympathetic about the car situation
• Writing down my feelings about the car situation and telling it like it is
• Watching John’s happy reaction to what I wrote about him
• Meeting Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest Airlines, after listening to him speak at UT

And, lo and behold:

• This app, because it makes me reflect and remember and record

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