This morning I woke up with the following ringing in my ears:

Gratitude is the most important ingredient in everything we do.

I was surprised to not hear something like, “You’re stupid…why did you get to bed so late? Now you’re tired and you were supposed to wake up at 5:30 not 6:00…”

Or, “Damn, I knew I shouldn’t have had dairy right before bed; those chips and sour cream gave me a headache.”

(Full disclosure, I did have both of those thoughts, but only AFTER the gratitude one.)

And then I did the unthinkable and checked my Facebook—before meditating, writing, drinking coffee—and lo and behold, someone on Facebook had posted a picture of a sunrise over a body of beautiful silver blue water and said something about being grateful for another day.

So there you have it. Gratitude is the shit. There is nothing greater. And I can spout off about how I get tired of writing in a gratitude journal and how we need to have a balanced perspective and not be grateful for everything—stupid people, dumb people, people who get in the way of other people’s business and generally anyone who can’t mind their own business long enough to let someone else’s personal flower grow and flourish…

So yeah, I still believe being grateful is the highest compliment we can pay whatever force of nature or cosmic power is driving this ship onward through black space.

At least be grateful you get to experience the whole wild show of life for another minute, hour, day, week, year, decade. What other ride do you know of in your life?

So ok, I’ll list a few things I’m grateful for this morning (and don’t judge, they might not be that original, but who cares, they’re mine—remember, mind your own business…).

I’m damn grateful to hear my wife sleeping in our bed this morning, snoring ever so beautifully—no, she does NOT have a loud obnoxious snore; it’s a sweet snore, gentle and she’s sleeping in our bed and we’re married and we have a great relationship and we know how to extricate ourselves from any quarrels or disagreements or fights very well after over 32 years. And NO we don’t take relationship seminars, go to therapy or read books on relationship.

We are the seminar. We are the books. Our love and lasting marriage is proof that people can be together for long periods of time in a romantic relationship and thrive.

(Oh hell, I’m getting real puffy and soft right now, but who cares…)

This is what I’m grateful for. And then I’ll throw in the cat. The damn black cat who keeps pushing me out of my office chair when I’m trying to write.

He’s so cute and fluffy and soft and he just looks at me and says “Daddy, why can’t I sit in the chair?” and what’s a tough guy from New York supposed to do?

Well, I very gingerly and lovingly lift him from my chair and put him in another faux leather chair right next to mine. And I tell him, “Listen son, you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you get what you need…”

And then I’m grateful for my daughter. Damn, I say to myself, I have a 24-year-old daughter, and I only look 32.

So there’s a lot to be grateful for.

And yes, I’ll go off on rants and raves about stupid things such as why do we still need to use batteries in 2022 when we can send William Shatner up in space in a spaceship owned by a guy who sells toilet paper online? But that’s for another day.

Today, I’m just grateful. And I hope you’re grateful for something as well.

And when you see that sun rise, just think, that sun has been doing it’s thing for so long it should’ve been retired by now.