November 23, 2025
There’s something quietly revolutionary about this line. It doesn’t ask you to throw your arms around the whole universe in some dramatic, cinematic moment of gratitude. It doesn’t demand that you find joy in every season or pretend life is all sunshine and soft music. It simply says: start small. Start with one thing. Start with one breath. Start with the little.
And the little becomes a lot.
The older I get, the more I realize gratitude isn’t a switch, it’s a dimmer. Some days it’s bright and obvious: the kids laughing, a warm cup of coffee that didn’t go cold immediately, the rare moment when my house is quiet enough to hear my own thoughts. Other days it’s barely glowing, and the only thing I can muster is something like, “Well… at least my socks match.”
But even that counts.
Gratitude is sneaky like that. It doesn’t always show up as lightning bolts or major life events. Sometimes it’s just the tiny spark that keeps you from unraveling. The little things, the ones we overlook while we’re busy hunting for the big ones, are often the things carrying us.
A clean spoon when you need one.
A text from someone you didn’t realize you missed.
A moment of peace in a day that keeps coming at you sideways.
A reminder that you’re doing the best you can, even when you feel like you aren’t.
I used to think “real gratitude” had to be profound. But the truth is, the deeper my life gets, the more responsibilities, the more chaos, the more weight, the more the small things matter. The more I realize that a “little” isn’t little at all.
Giving thanks for a little teaches your brain to recognize abundance even when life feels scarce. It shifts the focus. It steadies the breath. It slows the spiral. Gratitude is one of the few tools we carry that works whether life is going well or life is going off the rails.
And here’s the wild part: once you start noticing the small good, more good becomes visible. Not because life suddenly improves, but because your eyes adjust to the light.
That’s what this proverb reminds me of:
You don’t need more to be grateful.
You need to notice what’s already here.
And when you do, you suddenly realize how much you’ve been standing in without seeing it.
Read the full blog post where I explore this Thought of the Day and the Question of the Day
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