Gratitude Takes You to Pitstop Happy

So when your toast lands the wrong way up, just be glad there’s another slice of bread in the bag

It’s twenty past the time I meant to get up, my head’s pounding even though I didn’t touch a drop of alcohol last night (what an injustice), and rain splashes my bedroom windows. I’ve got plenty to get annoyed about. However, the words of Sadhguru, an Indian mystic, pour into my head, reminding me that when I wake up in the morning, I’m lucky because I’m alive.

“When you wake up in the morning, the first thing you should do is Smile. You are Alive! Is that not the greatest blessing and reason enough to Smile?” Sadhguru

Also, since the phone hasn’t rung to tell me bad news, the chances are that my loved ones are alive and kicking. It turns out I’ve got a lot to be thankful for, and generating gratitude is wise. How else will I travel to my happy place?

Not all happy places are physical. I would love to spend my time in many locations on the map. But my favorite venue is Pitstop Happy. This is the state of mind I enter when feeling grateful.

Once you’ve reached such a destination, you’ll want to revisit it as often as possible, too, and the best way to get there is to pay attention to positivity and run through a mental gratitude list when you wake in the morning.

Most of us excel at highlighting what irks us first thing. We take small things, like the unfairness of toast landing jam side down when dropped, and turn them into reasons to get upset.

We might overlook gratitude as a happiness-producing tool. We realize it’s good for us, yet wait for it to rise effortlessly and transport us to the country of Feel-Good, where we can dip our toes.

The way around the problem? Cultivate gratitude. Highlight what’s right in life rather than what’s wrong. Problems will come and go; they are inescapable. But you need not make a big deal out of them.

Emphasize events that make you smile

Instead of creating roads of dissatisfaction, I spend more time in my happy zone. I get there by making a big deal out of teeny blessings. A bird chirping is enough to get me where I want to be because the ability to travel to your happy place excels after practice.

You create neural pathways when you scrunch up your face and complain. Connections and Roman-worthy roads form along which greater negativity travels.

The next time it rains, or you can’t find a parking space, your brain retraces steps along the already-formed misery highway. What’s more, the road, or rather connectivity, expands.

Before you know it, a spaghetti freeway wends through your brain, and flashing neon signs encourage thoughts to take the same old journey. The experience is similar when you cultivate gratitude, only you enjoy the paradise created in your head.

Your feel-good zone stems from positive thoughts, including appreciation

When you are thankful, your neurons connect like crazy. Happy hormones flood your mind and body, and you feel terrific. You want to revisit your happy place again and again.

But you may not go there much. Not as often as you visit the misery highway if you continue to think and talk about what irks you.

When you tell people you are annoyed, they express dissatisfaction, too. Sometimes, they outdo you with more extensive tales of woe.

“What, your toast only landed jam-side down on the floor? Mine dropped on my shoes!”

Your complaints inspire people to join in and highlight misery.

And the problem is, when you pull folks into your vortex of gloom, you get stuck on a treadmill of negativity because it’s fed back to you.

You’ll visit your gloom-laden highway on autopilot if it’s enormous. Remember, too, that negativity grows when you focus on it.

It’s not your fault, however. We seek problems to evade for survival and improvement of the species. You innately recognize what’s wrong and want to make a correction and stop it from happening again. This isn’t always useful, though. Constant acknowledgment of what upset you dents your well-being.

The way around the problem? Navigate your way to Pitstop Happy. Cultivate gratitude. Highlight what’s right in life rather than what’s wrong. Problems will come and go; they are inescapable. But you need not make a big deal out of them, and I recognize you do because I do, too, sometimes.

Now, though, I notice when I’m negative and stop. I even freeze-framed my face to check out my expression in a mirror when irked once. Before then, I didn’t appreciate that I could create so many forehead wrinkles with negativity. Do likewise, and you’ll soon want to stop, if only to slow down signs of aging.

Instead of creating roads of dissatisfaction, I spend more time in my happy zone. I get there by making a big deal out of teeny blessings.

A bird chirping is enough to get me where I want to be because the ability to travel to your happy place excels after practice.

It’s bedtime, and I’m back beneath the covers. My headache left, the rain stopped, and I achieved all the tasks I meant to get done despite my accidental lie-in. Most importantly, I’m content, calm, and joyful. How did I get to my happy place?

You guessed right. I Looked for everything wonderful about life and shifted my thoughts until I felt warm and cheerful. Maybe you could do the same, and when your toast lands the wrong way up, you can be glad that there’s more bread in the bag and you own a toaster.