No thanks

Welcome to a special Wednesday edition of Foolproof! It’s coming to you one day later because I chose to do zero work over the holiday, a fact about which I am thrilled.

So last week on a very quick trip back to DC, two of my closest friends were over at my place. While I was grabbing something from my bedroom, I overheard one ask the other in the living room, “What’s making you happy lately?”

I thought that was the cutest thing ever, so naturally I’ve now been asking everyone the same question. But it also made me think about my answer (as I’m sure you immediately did, too). My gut reaction was a little cheesy, but hear me out.

Here’s mine: the sound of the birds in the morning. There’s a decent amount of good happening in my life right now, so I had a lot of things to choose from. And those things did end up coming up in my flow of thought. But my brain immediately went to the birds first, which was honestly surprising and some introspection made me realize something that I wanted to share.

This is kind of an extension to last week’s newsletter, and I wanted to dig a little deeper into the “gratitude” part.

Last year sucked for me, I won’t sugarcoat it. I dealt with a bad boss, I left my job — rendering me super confused about what I wanted to do with my life — and I went through a break-up.

Every book I read or podcast I listened to seemed to suggest the same thing: “Don’t want to be miserable? Develop a gratitude practice.” Gratitude for what, I thought? Didn’t they read my above list of grievances? I was pretty content wallowing in my self-pity and watching Desperate Housewives.

Until I finished Desperate Housewives, so I tried the gratitude thing. They call it a practice for a reason; it takes a long time to get good at it. I bought this journal. I wrote down three things every morning that I was grateful for and three things at night. It wasn’t easy, at first. “Coffee” was always #1. “Breakfast” was always #2. But doing it every day made me remember to be on the lookout for things to be grateful for so I’d have something to write down at night. Sneaky, tbh.

And so, thanks to the pods and the books and the therapy, I learned a way to feel legitimate happiness in my darkest time. Because the opposite could have been just as easily true. It’s not hard to make ourselves feel miserable or find complaints even when things are objectively going well (or maybe that’s just me, but I don’t think it is). What’s great about practicing gratitude is that even when things are going well, my brain is still wired to notice the little things. Which has generally just made me happier.

And an important disclaimer: This isn’t some toxic positivity BS. I still deal with stress and difficult moments on a near-daily basis, to be clear. But practicing gratitude in what was easily the most difficult period of my life to date gave me the tools I still use to exist happily now.

What’s making you happy lately? Let me know by either replying to this email or sending me a note on IG. I have loved reading and responding to your messages (it’s the highlight of my week), so please keep ‘em coming!

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