#365grateful

There are many things I feel strongly about, some more important than others in the grand scheme of things. For example, having crunchy bits in my ice cream is something I feel strongly about, but is not something that I feel the need to spend huge amounts of time thinking about. Two of the more important things I am currently thinking about and trying to focus on are gratitude and accountability. I realize that I have a great deal to be grateful for and I try to express my gratitude, but I also liked the idea of sharing with the greater world what I am grateful for and also trying to be more intentional. At the beginning of this year, I saw something posted somewhere that asked "us" to do something with all those pictures we take with our smartphones and to focus our picture-taking on the things that make us grateful and then being in the age of social media that we are, to then post our images somewhere (accountability). The hashtag to use is #365grateful or #365gratitude; I can't really remember which one it was and I don't think it matters, so I use one or the other. The point being, that when I try to be intentional with my gratitude and to document it, I find that there are limitless things I am grateful for, but are they worthy of capturing an image of? How much do I want to share my images? Also, what happens if I miss a day? Am I kicked out of the gratitude club? I don't actually worry at all about being judged, because how can anyone question what I am grateful for? So, to date, I have 53 images of things I appreciate starting from January 3, and yes, I have skipped a couple of days, not because I wasn't grateful, but more because I didn't pull out my phone in time, or some things are just hard to capture in a photo. There are also some days where I posted two photos! I am going to try to keep this up for the year and see what happens. I can't say for sure if I have shifted my thinking or that I am a happier, more peaceful person, but I do think about gratitude everyday and I try to tell those around me that I appreciate them (I try). Here are a few of my images and to see more, you can follow me on Twitter (iggybb) or Instagram(bbiorn). Now, accountability, there's a BIG topic and left for another blog post. One thing I do wonder about though, is how do we teach our children and our students to be more grateful? Really grateful...