Habitualization and Using Gratitude to Fight it

As I read books, I sometimes have a pen handy, but hate making notes in the margins or highlighting great snippets of text. When something is really great, I’l bend the page and hope to remember to return to it for inspiration. In Four Seasons in Rome (h/t to my friend Sam Hamlin for the gift), there was a paragraph about Habitualization. Sometimes, my mind can remember what section of a page something an interesting quote was written. I can’t remember the section of the book (beginning, middle, end), so I’m forced to flip through the whole book, hoping to find what I’m looking for. I used to be able to recall history information by revisiting the page in my mind, or I could track it down within a chapter (if you’re like this, too, I’d love to know!).

Anyway, last night I tracked down this piece about Habitualization in Fours Seasons in Rome (left side of book, top of the page…) and reread it because, well, Thanksgiving is next week. Anthony Doerr writes,

“…over time, we stop perceiving familiar things - words, friends, apartments - as they truly are. To eat a banana for the thousandth time is nothing like eating a banana for the first time… the easier an experience, or the more entrenched, or the more familiar, the fainter our sensation of it becomes. This is true of chocolate and marriages and hometowns and narrative structures. Complexities wane, miracles become unremarkable, and if we’re not careful, pretty soon we’re gazing out at our lives as if through a burlap sack.”

It’s a simple idea, one that we might describe as taking things for granted. November and Thanksgiving provide us an opportunity to stop and be grateful. Most years, we can do this surrounded by family and friends; this year is more tenuous, obviously. My family, like so many others, won’t all be together, it sucks. However, no matter how difficult it might be, we have to find silver linings in this storm cloud that is 2020. We’ve got to figure out how to bring a little joy to each other.

If you’re comfortable, I’d love if you emailed me one thing you’re grateful for. I plan to compile them and share them out next week to overwhelm these damn 2020 clouds with so many silver linings, at least for a brief moment of time for all of us.

I’ll start with a little list I’ve compiled:

I am grateful for:

1) A patient and loving wife who is letting me try to chase some silly dream and hasn’t once made me feel like it’s a silly dream.

2) Random phone calls from friends (I owe some a return call, I know).

3) People offering their time. I’ve been reaching out to people on social media to come on my podcast, and not a single person has said “no” yet. People helping people.

4) Fresh fruit

5) That first sip of coffee in the morning

6) Zoom calls with my Holy Cross pals (I’m using pals now, I’m old enough, right?)

7) Having green space nearby

8) Breakfast burritos (especially from Monument)

9) The sun glistening off the John Hancock building.

10) My mom, brother, sisters, nephews, and brother-in-law. We won’t need as much food this year, but we’ll all try to keep some form of tradition going. Maybe some new tradition comes from this, too.

Send along your gratitude(s) in an email to me (StayhomeHusband@gmail.com) or write it in the comment section. I’ll share them out anonymously next week.