I’ve been participating in The 100 Day Project, where you choose an activity and do it for 100 days, posting on Instagram as you go. Many of the projects are art-related; I decided that mine would be to create something new every day, either with art or words.

The first few days I was pleasantly surprised by what I produced. Then on Day 8, I hit a wall. I’d been busy and wasn’t able to do anything until late in the day. I had an idea of what I wanted, but what ended up on the paper did not match the vision in my head at all. I really didn’t like and didn't want to share this piece. However, there wasn’t time to start over, and I wasn’t about to miss a day so early in the project.

Then I discovered that if I zoomed in tight on one corner, I liked what I saw—a lot. So I took that picture. And it struck me that this could be a sort of metaphor for life. No matter what the big picture looks like, we can always zoom in on at least one detail and find something we like. We can focus on that area and feel appreciation for it, which shifts us into a positive mindset of gratitude rather than a negative one. And even if nothing about the big picture changes, if we stay focused on that feeling of gratitude for what we do like, we will feel better.

Appreciation and gratitude are so powerful. Studies have shown that feeling grateful actually improves our physical and psychological health. That’s pretty amazing. And in my experience, when I consciously seek things to appreciate, I seem to encounter them more and more.

So my reminder to myself, for the rest of this project and beyond, is to zoom in on the good whenever possible. As this quote from William Arthur Ward puts it, “Gratitude can transform common days into Thanksgiving, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.” Happy Thanksgiving! ;-)