It seems this year’s new years thing is a gratitude jar, in which you daily deposit a slip of paper on which is written something, great or small, that you were/are grateful for that day. Mindful gratitude, intentional gratitude – I believe those were the phrases used. Then on New Year’s Eve, you open your jar and read through the gratitudes and contemplate the good things of the past year instead of the not-so good things.

My first reaction to this was disdainful, uncharitable, derisive. And with self-acknowledged egotism, pomposity, self-importance, and sanctimoniousness, or in one word, hubris, I thought “How sad for them.”

But it really is a point of view. Or the cliche – “You do what you gotta do.”

I would hardly describe myself as a pollyanna, not sure any of you would either. I tend to think of myself as practical, pragmatic, unimaginative and while not entirely a ‘glass half empty’ person, neither do I see myself as a ‘glass half full’ person either.

I am, on the other hand, a believer in the mystic and magical. I can be fanciful and irrational. I can be soppy and sentimental.

I can still carry a grudge but I carry them more lightly now. The pains of the past, which still inform who I am, are visited less often and with some insight, but not with what some would call forgiveness.

I am an upsides/downsides person, as many of my past posts can attest to. Some days the upside is difficult to find no matter how much I poke and scratch for it but I can honestly say that as I try to get my mind settled for the night (not alway successfully) I do see, and acknowledge, some upsides. And if I were to maintain a gratitude jar I suppose these upsides would be what would go into it.

But…

My life is not so busy, chaotic, complicated that I am unaware of these upsides even as they occur. They are there, I am aware that they are there, and I smile, inwardly and outwardly, and say “Thank you” that they are there.

I don’t subscribe to the yearly review concept – tho Dave Barry’s always amuses me, whether it is political, musical, theatrical or personal.  I have no need to review my past year, the past already takes up too much space in my consciousness.  Oh, mistakes made, too much in the forefront, whether near past, or far past. The good things? You know, just as often front and center – near and far past.

But if your point of view differs, and you need that gratitude jar and yearly review to keep your upsides and downsides in balance and perspective then do what you gotta do.