All posts by Ryan

100 Things I’m Grateful For

Lately, I’ve been experiencing some great things from a daily practice of gratitude that I started writing a book about it. I thought, well, if I’ve got it as a goal to write a book, it may as well be about something that means a lot to me, so Eyes to See: How The Power of Gratitute Can Transform You Today (working title) was born.

Then one day as I was envisioning how it would touch people’s lives I had the wild idea to make a “gratitude wall” & encorage others (that’s how I usually achieve my goals, by enlisting others to join me in the endeavor) to make a list of things they are grateful for. The stated aim? To create the largest list of gratitude anywhere on the web. The hidden aim? To help people get a small taste of the power that gratitude can have in their lives.

Tomorrow being The Day where we typically think about gratitude more readily, I thought it’d be a good time to sit down and make my own list to contribute to The Gratitude Wall.

I am grateful for…

  1. Peace in my heart on troubling days
  2. Andy McKee (his music inspires me & helps me to concentrate!)
  3. Dr. Amen (His diligence in the face of oppsition & his research on ADD)
  4. My mother (& the great husband she has)
  5. My father
  6. My sisters, their husbands & the fun & intelligent kids they are helping to raise
  7. My bike! (Yes I ride mainly because I have no insurance on my car, but I enjoy the ride too!)
  8. Emily (taught me that I can choose to FLY)
  9. Bro. Ed (Showed me what passion for sharing truth with others looks like)
  10. Bro. Bassett (He shared his time with me to counsel & comfort. RIP.)
  11. The Temple (A place of holiness & a refuge from the storm)
  12. Cowboy boots!
  13. My ability to read
  14. My ability to think & speak
  15. My ability to write
  16. My herb garden (1st year. Did amazingly not well. 🙂 But I learned that they need water!)
  17. Bishop McGarr
  18. Eggs, Toast & Yolk Cutted 🙂 (Breakfast I accidentally named before I could talk properly)
  19. Blogs
  20. My Journal (Scripture & personal both)
  21. Those striving to leave behind lives of darkness and step into lives of light
  22. The piano
  23. The guitar
  24. People who are patient with me while I learn how to be
  25. Good roommates
  26. A roof over my head
  27. A bed that fits most of me 🙂
  28. Food given in times of financial downturn from the kindness of friends & family
  29. Having worked with so many great people while creating businesses
  30. The LDS Church
  31. The Tabernacle Choir
  32. Pandora Radio
  33. Michael Jackson on the Wii & my nephew who got me hooked on it
  34. Dance Dance Revolution, lovingly called DDR (I once played for 4 hours and was dripping sweat!)
  35. The pomegranite tree in my mom’s back yard (Mmmm)
  36. Lasagne
  37. Teachers
  38. Avatar The Last Airbender cartoon series!
  39. Sean T & The Insanity Challenge crew
  40. The Book of Mormon (Has saved my life many times)
  41. Institutes of Religion
  42. Pears, apples & peaches
  43. Peter & Veronica & Oatmeal 🙂
  44. Learning Korean
  45. Serving a mission
  46. Receiving letters in the mail
  47. Golden, neon red & orange sunsets
  48. White puffy clouds in blue skies
  49. Beautiful snow capped mountains
  50. Fall leaves, kids playing in them
  51. John Williams
  52. Automatic doors (the make me feel like I’m the Starship Enterprise)
  53. Jean Luc Picard
  54. Challenges (The struggle to figure out how to overcome them is surprisingly fulfilling)
  55. Children’s laughter & laughter in general
  56. Kid History – Esp. Episode 6!
  57. President Hinckley’s humorous optimism (RIP)
  58. Truth & it’s search
  59. Picking weeds
  60. Kind neighbors (one watches out for hubcaps for my car which at one point had none left!)
  61. Service opportunities
  62. Cheesecake
  63. A good drama (Batman Begins, An Amazing Mind, Inception to name a few)
  64. The Little Prince (Read it like 10 times or so)
  65. A good fantasy movie (Narnia, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Lord of  the Rings all “do it” for me)
  66. Home made cookin
  67. Learning that I’ve got some codependent habits (cuz seeing them are the first step in changing them)
  68. Running (The Wasatch Back, St. George Marathon, Moab Half & all the fun surrounding them)
  69. The clarity that exercise brings to the mind of this ADD kid
  70. Good therapists 🙂 (If you’ve never seen one, give it a go)
  71. Learning
  72. A budding passion in government, learning the history of nations and in protecting freedom
  73. Ezra Taft Benson (his passion for freedom)
  74. America going to the moon (it gave me something to dream about as a kid)
  75. Lake Powell (fills my mind and heart with good memories)
  76. Cats (have grown up with them and have one now – well, my roommate does – and it amazes me how much of myself I see in them)
  77. Lying on the grass, letting the sun warm my face while the cool breeze dances all around me.
  78. Reading with my nephews & neice
  79. Hot water…running water…water
  80. A working body
  81. No toothache (even though I’ve been running on 3 months now since I lost a tooth)
  82. Persistant creditors (reminds me of how I was to some girls I liked in grade school. Now I see why it may not have worked out)
  83. Veggies
  84. Smoothies
  85. Veggie Smothies 🙂
  86. Dreams, visions, goals
  87. Clean clothes…clothes…being naked at least once a day 🙂
  88. Nikola Tesla (While ecentric, he was a genious!)
  89. Jazz music (not really cool jazz, but more Michael Buble & Harry Connick Jr stuff)
  90. The internet
  91. Good people of every faith who are striving to live divine principles
  92. Cheese
  93. White boards
  94. People who smile
  95. Safety while driving
  96. The ability to travel great distances in a short amount of time
  97. Facebook
  98. General Conferences (of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)
  99. Parks
  100. The future

I encourage anyone reading this to make thier own list, post it on The Gratitude Wall & grab a free copy of my prepublished book.

Here are a few other lists from the wall: