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**15 July 2016 updated 24 November 2024

Here is how this post started when it was originally written over eight years ago:

“The world seems out of kilter and the daily onslaught of news about violence and injustice can easily overwhelm and distract. Each of us, however, copes in our own way. Some may ramp up their activism. Others may turn to faith and local communities. While still others, may simply do things that are private and behind the scenes.”

I was struck (again) as to how much things change, yet, often remain the same. The holiday in the coming week has always been one for me to reflect, to be thankful, and to lean heavily into  gratitude. It seemed fitting to post the original this week as I consider the many ways and the many things and the many people for which I am deeply grateful.

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Finding a way to balance the scary, horrific, unjust, and just surreal world with the day-to-day reality of our lives can be a struggle. I have no sage advice on how to get involved and make a difference because I’ve always found these sorts of decisions are intensely personal, painfully contingent, and as rhetoricians know, always contextual.

So today I offer the long-standing, tried, and true advice: gratitude. The google definition that pops us tells us gratitude is the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.

My strategy of self care as of late has been to prioritize gratitude, that is, to be deliberate and conscious about the things we are grateful for and to be certain to return kindness or simply to bestow them. It helps me focus on the positive events around me, and in some small measure, it helps me feel as though I am making a tiny difference.

While many smarter and wiser folks before me have said it, a good strategy to start each day is to write down the three to five things that you are most grateful for. As we know, the material act of writing does something to us. It enacts an embodiment of becoming and doing and even making. Recent world events have made this practice even more important for me, as it reminds that there is still good out there in both little and big things.

Here is a sampling of my gratitude list over the last couple of weeks:

• finding the words to answer this question posed by my 6-yr old great niece, “why are people so mean?”
• having a full week where my body didn’t let me down (edit 11-24: ha, I post this with a still lingering cold, but I am grateful to be upright 🙂
• enjoying the time (and privilege) of being able to write
• relishing a silly conversation about eye shadow and you tube videos on make-up application with my almost 15-yr old goddaughter (edit 11-24: and she is still my go to for silliness and all things make-up)
• finding out my new office at school did indeed have a window
• reading lots of cool and interesting project ideas floating through the #RHM community (edit 11-24: shifted to RHM since that’s sort of how its known now! and still true, BTW)
• managing a revision where the comments actually made it better
• laughing with various friends over everything and nothing
• sharing some meatballs (a major guilty pleasure) with a colleague (edit 11:24: I do miss that meatball place in Cincinnati, and remain grateful that I was just texting yesterday with the colleague mentioned here!)
• saying an official goodbye to two lovely people who I loved so much and miss even more (edit 11-24: still miss them, but I’m hopeful I will get to see them in the coming week!)
• talking with a friend/colleague and realizing you’ve been on the phone for 2 ½ hours (edit 11-24: still feels like just a minute when we talk.)

By know means a comprehensive list, but it shows the variety of things that I write down on any given day. 

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So as we’re moving toward the winter break trying to balance life and our thoughts and emotions in what seems like a world gone mad, I encourage you to take care of yourselves in whatever way that works for you. And maybe leaning into gratitude will help with that.

Wishing you health, peace, and joy.

**The date of this post is when it was orginally posed on WomeninTechComm, which was a national mentoring network for women in the academy who worked in or identified as scholars of technical and professional communication. That organization and its website are no more so I am slowly porting over to here all the blog posts that I wrote, thus the reason I have kept the original date at the top of the post. I have made some minor changes to the original text so that’s why it will also note the current date of publication.

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