Being Grateful

    Hello World!! I hope everything is lovely and beautiful out in your lives today. So, due to the sheer amount of stress that comes with being in tech for a show while trying to ace midterm exams, I have been working hard at trying to stay as positive and happy as I can every single day. And over this past month, there has been one thing that I have been doing that has really made a difference in my day to day happiness: actively being grateful.
   Every night before I fall asleep, I thank the universe for all of the things I am grateful for from that day.  I know people who write their list down in a grateful journal, if you are religious, you can thank God for all of the wonderful things in life or, as you fall asleep you can count your blessings, there are many different ways of going about it, but in the end it makes an immense difference. The best way to start is by giving yourself a goal of 5 things to be grateful for and once you get into the habit of doing it every night, your lists just get longer and longer.
    Originally, I began doing this to just keep my spirits up in a stressful period of my life, but there are so many more benefits than just general daily happiness.   At the beginning, when I was just trying to meet my 5 things, I began making note in my head of things that made me smile throughout the day, and because of that I got into the habit of being far more aware of the beauty around me.  For example, last night walking home from rehearsal when it was cold and quite late at night, normally I would just be on my phone trying to get home as quickly as I could. But, last night I was observing the world around me and noticed how absolutely stunning the moon was and ended up standing on the middle of one of our fields just taking in the moon.
    Over the past few weeks, I have definitely become a glass half full person. Whenever I am having a hard day, it has become incredibly easy for me to just think about all of the wonderful things that have happened that day and completely change my outlook. I have become far more appreciative of how incredible my life is. Even if I am having a horrible day, I sit and think of how grateful I am for my health, my education, the fact that I have food to eat and clothes to wear.  Just from doing this once a day, I am far more aware of how incredible it is to be alive in this beautiful world.
    So if you are going through a hard time or know that you are going to have a stressful few weeks ahead, just give this one thing a try and you might find that it inspires happiness in you on days you never thought it possible. Let me know if any of you have the same experience that I did.

Stay Awesome Guys,
Kodi