Jar of Gratitude

On the first day of the school year, a beloved colleague of mine gifted me a gratitude jar. I opened it up and read the tag inside that challenged me to search for pennies, and when I found one, I was to be mindful of someone/something in my life that I was grateful for as I put the penny in the jar. I quickly fell in love with the idea. I thought it was incredibly sweet, but it has become so much more than that as is the case with most things in my life.

I'd love to share why...

Life is hard. I feel fairly confident that I could shout that from the rooftops, and most would look up at me and shout back, "Preach it!" with fists high in the air as a show of solidarity. Here is something I know though: As hard as life is, it is even more beautiful. It is a beautiful mess of love in heartache, of triumph after numerous tragedies, of joy in the midst of pain, of light during darkness. The beauty is just sitting there waiting to be noticed. This is what I have found to be true. Beauty, joy, love, and triumph are not boisterous. They do not call for attention. They are always there, but they call us to change our gaze from the noise of hate, hurt, and tragedy. The good in our life is right in front of our eyes if we can shift our focus.

I have always found myself to err more on the side of happiness than any of the alternatives, but this gift has had a fundamental shift in my life and, subsequently, others.

I decided that I would take my gratitude to social media, which often can be an abyss of hate and judgment. Every penny that I found, I vowed to post it on social media and write a quick blurb about someone of something I was grateful for. What started as a sporadic posting if I could find a penny quickly became a determined search for gratitude. For 30 years, I'd pass what seemed like mounds of pennies, but now I shifted my focus to a search for those copper treasures so that I could take a moment to realize the abundance of beauty that was in my life.

It didn't take long before I had co-workers coming into my room dropping pennies off for me, which honestly is one of the sweetest things in my opinion. It felt wildly heartwarming that these people cared enough to take time out of their day to make sure that I could add some joy to mine. Pennies began to fill up my school mailbox, and I even had some mailed to me from other schools. Students would bring me ones they found, and they would even offer me dimes they found because a penny wasn't available. It became a collective search for gratitude, and it filled my heart each time because let's remember that life is hard, but it's not as hard when we switch our gaze to the abundance of beauty.

This week, I found myself stuck in a heap of heaviness. I struggled to rise out of a fog, and I just couldn't shift my gaze. Earlier in the week, during my first class, I looked down as I was rolling my chair from one side of my desk to the other. I noticed a shiny, beautiful penny. Tails was facing up, and "Life is too hard" was far too overwhelming for me to even think of shifting my gaze to gratitude, and so I left it on the floor. I was on my plan period a few hours later, and I again was rolling around, trying to remove a few things from my "To-Do" list. The shine of the penny caught my eye, and I again looked down, hoping maybe this time I could muster up ability to change my focus from the fog to the light.

There it was. The penny that was once showing tails in the morning was now flipped to heads for good luck. A sweet, beautiful student of mine must have turned it over when I wasn't looking, thus leaving behind some joy for me to find. I quickly grabbed my phone and snapped a picture, vowing that this penny would be the catalyst for a blog post instead of a quick Facebook blurb.

I held the penny in my hand and smiled. It was just a penny. It was the most insignificant of currency in our country, yet it had become so important to me. That's the lesson though, isn't it? It the small things that we need to be grateful for. Yes, we love the big moments, but we have to hold onto the little ones, too. It's the visits to your friend's office after a long day, the laughs with another that make it hard to breathe, the text from your mom that is a reminder that she loves no one else as much as you, the moments with family that are so precious and treasured, the conversations with students that serve as reminders that you have the most incredible job, the moments alone in nature that take your breath away, and the million other little things that collectively add up to take up every inch of our hearts.

I'll never argue that life isn't hard. I will, however, always argue that we have so much more to be grateful for, and it's imperative that we stop and realize that. Grab your own jar, and fill it up with pennies of gratitude, too. I can promise you that you will feel a shift deep in your heart that leaves you with a new sense of joy.