Two Men...

...making beer. To be honest, I never asked why it had to ferment in the bathroom, but I suspect it had something to do with the possibility of it exploding. I can remember in my youth, when making beer wasn't a craft but an illicit experiment done in the back of closets. The jig was up if the beer exploded all over the closet. Perhaps Dan had such an experience once. Here John and Dan are transferring the liquid into a glass carboy leaving the yucky remains (the wort?) in the bottom of the plastic container. I was immensely relieved when he took the container home with him to clean. the glass carboy will continue to bubble for a couple of weeks or until the bathroom renovations commence.

I have been reading a book by A.J. Jacobs called Thanks a Thousand: A Gratitude Journey  . The concept of gratitude gets bandied about a lot these days but often struck me as a bit, well, gratuitous. This book changed my mind. It started out as a simple experiment. Jacobs, a New York times bestselling author decided to thank everyone involved in producing and making his morning cup of coffee. It quickly became complicated and something of an obsession, and ultimately involved over a thousand people around the globe, but the insights he derived from the experiment were fascinating.

Here are a few observations about the benefits of gratitude and of thanking people 

Gratitude has benefits...it improves compassion and helps heal the body and the mind.

You can't have gratitude for something you don't notice or that you take for granted. It is important to take the time to notice the small things..to focus on all the things that go right every day instead of the few that go wrong. 

Our culture overemphasizes the individual over the team. Nowhere is this more obvious these days than with the people who claim it is their individual right not to get vaccinated against a deadly disease for whatever personal reasons rather than doing it for the good of the group. In gratitude we recognize that the source of goodness is outside of ourselves.

Gratitude takes effort and intention and slowing down. It takes listening to other people's stories,. Everyone has one. Appreciating the effort and intention that goes into making a single cup of coffee. Gratitude requires savoring...the coffee, the moment, the action, the thousand people who contributed to that single cup of coffee.

Gratitude takes collaboration. And affirming and recognizing what we can't do alone. Almost everything good in the world is the result of teamwork....

Appreciation and gratitude go hand in hand...

Gratitude isn't a result of happiness. Gratitude creates happiness.