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Every day I try and list things that I am grateful for.

It’s sort of a combination gratitude and “things I enjoyed today” list.I use a little app on my phone to do it.

On Thanksgiving I thought it might be interesting to review the last year and see for what I had the most gratitude.

I went through and put things into categories and totaled them up.

Some gratitude observations:

Gratitude for my family (Adrienne, Jordan and Damian) was the thing I was most grateful for last year. Music came in not too far behind.

The Top 10 Gratitude Items in order:

1. Family
2. Music
3. Food
4. Friends
5. Dogs
6. Sobriety
7. Work
8. Nice weather
9. Health (mine and family’s)
10. Comforts- having heat and hot water makes regular appearances in this category.

I apparently like naps because I have 28 instances of being grateful for a nap or sleeping in. Espresso also shows up an awful lot. I clearly need more sleep.

Late in the year, working on this podcast started to enter the list and shows up very often.

The new secret is, wait for it……………………….there is no secret.

There is nothing hidden, new or unknown about living a better life. There is no new secret

It was figured out centuries ago and has been rehashed so many times in so many ways. The way to a good life has been explained literally millions of times.

Be Good to Others
Take Care of your Body
Train your Mind

The problem is that it isn’t easy. And there is no avoiding some degree of pain and unhappiness.

Our human tendency is to want things to be easy and pain free but that isn’t the way life works. A good life doesn’t come from ease. It comes from work. It comes from kindness. It comes from some degree of sacrifice.

Stop wishing for it to be easy. Stop expecting it to be easy. Embrace struggle and work as worthwhile in themselves.

You reap what you sow. Period, end of sentence, paragraph and guru.

We can read as many self-help books as we want (and I have) with all the great endorsements on the back cover from all of our great spiritual leaders. “Transformative” “This book will change your life” etc etc

No book will change your life.

Here is the paradox: Many of those books have the potential to change your life. The key is action. If we took nearly any of those books and actually applied the lessons, over and over and over; we would see great transformation.

However it is much easier to keep reading the next book and hoping for the “Secret” than it is to make the hard changes and sacrifices we need to make for real growth.

I would much rather (*Infinity) sit on my couch eating Cheezit’s (or reduced fat Cheezits if I’m being good) feeling temporarily better while reading yet another book on happiness than I would do something hard like taking action.

I would imagine my ratio of consumption to action (how much I read about changing my life vs how much I actually do) is somewhere around 90/10. If I had actually meditated as much as I have read about it I probably would be levitating by now. But I keep hoping to read that line or find that “secret” that will make it easier or less uncomfortable.

For most of us if we moved that ratio to 50/50 it would change us in amazing ways. If we did the things suggested in these books, not once but consistently, we would transform.

Now I am not suggesting that reading inspirational works is bad. Matter of fact, I think it is critical to keep our motivation up and feel inspired. We cannot do these things alone.

It’s just that we have the ratio way off. Complete more, consume less.

Here’s the situation. You know you should go for a run but you feel like sitting on the couch, watching the next episode of Breaking Bad and eating a few more potato chips.

Most of us would say “I don’t want to workout”.

But that isn’t exactly correct. It’s not that you don’t want to workout, it’s just that you don’t feel like it.

I was first introduced to this idea from the wonderful writings of Rabbi Noah Wineburg who wrote the 48 Ways to Wisdom.

The idea is to switch from saying you don’t want to do something to realizing that you do want to do it but you don’t feel like it.

It’s a small change but by reminding yourself of what you really want, you help switch the focus from your mood back to your intention. Moods are mighty fickle.

In Oliver Burkeman’s great book “The Antidote” he explores the idea that we all think we have to feel like doing something in order to do it. This is a notoriously common view and the cause of most of the procrastination in the world. We don’t have to feel like doing something. We need to just do it.

There is an old phrase in recovery circles that says “You cant think your way into right action. You have to act your way into right thinking”. For alcoholics and addicts this is critical because their mood is never going to align at the beginning of their recovery.

Dan Millman, author of The Way of the Peaceful Warrior says: “Life demands right action, if knowledge is to come alive.”

This is one of things that can be troubling about the positive thinking model. It encourages the idea that what we think or feel is the most important thing. We don’t feel motivated, inspired or fired up.

There are simply going to be times that we don’t feel like doing something but we still need to do it.