Three lines on the kitchen floor

Gratitude journaling sounded, to him, like homework for happy people. He tried it once, wrote "family, health, house," felt nothing, and stopped.

A while later someone suggested a tiny change. Not just what you're grateful for, but why. The specific, small why.

So instead of "the sun," he wrote: "the sun on the kitchen floor while it was still quiet and no one else was up." Instead of "coffee," he wrote about the exact first sip. The lines got longer and, oddly, truer.

The surprise came later. He started noticing those moments while they were happening, the warm floor, the quiet, the first sip, because some part of him knew he'd want to write them down. The journal hadn't just recorded good moments. It had taught him to catch them.