It sounds a little silly on my tongue. Grrr- at- it- oode. Gratitude. Not the hardest of concepts but it seems to be the easiest to forget at times. When the to-do list builds up a mile high, and the planner is booked chalk full, and the test weeks are rollin’ in, and nothing ever seems to stop- it is easy to think that gratitude does. It’s easy to think that because our lists are full and our days packed, then it must be true that gratitude does indeed elude us.

Our vision turns to tunnel and all we see is what we are burdened by and in turn we miss the little things that are put into action to lighten the load. The little notes your roommate sets on your desk in the morning, your friend offering to drive you over to your next meeting so you don’t have to walk, a stranger holding the door, a hug from a friend in between classes. The tiniest little things, that if noticed can bring a smile to your face and brush an ounce of the load off your shoulders.

And maybe, ounce by ounce you can be just that more freed come the end of the week. You may not even know how you got there, how you got through all of the lists and piles, it may not add up that it was every little thing that pushed you further and aided you through the week but even the simplest bit of gratitude might change the way you feel about things. There’s that little feeling inside that you get, it most resembles shock to me, it is shock that someone might care enough about you to go out of their way to help, that someone thought of you amidst their busy lives to stop and take note, that someone loves you, knows you. That little feeling of shock is what rises up to help you stand a little taller and walk a little happier because this shock in itself is its own form of gratitude. Though gratitude doesn’t make the tests go away, and I’m certain your planner will be filled regardless but it does make going through week by week a bit easier, a bit happier.

Owing some of your happiness to the random acts of kindness of others lets life become more meaningful, lets you notice things that you’d have looked over, and lets you feel things a bit deeper. I think we could all use a touch of gratitude regardless of where we are at, to brush a bit of the weight off of our shoulders and stretch the grin on our faces a tad wider. Just a touch.