Thanks a Thousand: A Gratitude Journey (TED Books)

by A.J. Jacobs

The act of noticing, after all, is a crucial part of gratitude; you can’t be grateful if your attention is scattered.

“Thanks for thanking me,”

“Grateful living is possible only when we realize that other people and agents do things for us that we cannot do for ourselves. Gratitude emerges from two stages of information processing—affirmation and recognition. We affirm the good and credit others with bringing it about. In gratitude, we recognize that the source of goodness is outside of ourselves.”

If something is done well for us, the process behind it is largely invisible.

A shocking amount of our scientific knowledge may be inaccurate because we don’t have enough bassists in lab coats doing backup.

The key is to remind myself that I’m a lucky bastard. To make a concerted effort to acknowledge all the good things I take for granted.

The reality is, I’m not unlucky with subways—it just seems that way because the enraging experiences are the ones that stick in my memory.

In this post–Harvey Weinstein world, unsolicited hugs seem like an excellent strategy to avoid.

“Are you going to thank the drug dealers who sell meth to the truck drivers so they can drive all night?”