Items For Loving Life #2 - The Best Gift of 2017

Each Christmas, my wife and I host a few family members at our home for the holidays. It’s always a great time and while it doesn’t achieve the hilarity of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, it nonetheless does result in plenty of smiles and laughs.

However, a couple years back, we woke up Christmas morning and looked at a truly impressive stack of presents under the tree. It was a heaping, huge mound of shiny red, green and golden-bowed gifts; any child’s ultimate Christmas dream. And then suddenly, there was a quiet, palpable sense of awkwardness, even embarrassment that fell over us as we realized that maybe, just maybe, the Christmas gift-buying had become….excessive (gasp!). So in turn, we tore those bad boys open, enjoyed the holiday, and immediately instituted a punishable-by-death $50 limit per person for every Christmas thereafter.

Since then, we have stuck to our budget really well, and in all honesty, the gift-buying has become even more thoughtful. A wonderful product of that policy combined with my wife’s kindness resulted in my favorite gift of 2017 and the focal point of this article:

Behold the 5-Minute Journal! Now, I agree, this little booklet does not look like much. And I can feel many of you eyeing the back button on your Google Chrome right now…but I am going to throw an attention grabber, to keep ya here just a bit longer: This journal will flood you with more happiness than if you were mainlining dopamine in the back alleys of Juarez. (Sorry, that got a bit extreme.)

Here’s how this clever game-changer works: The first 40 pages of the book are instructions on how to proceed with the journal. The rest of the book are pages with blank lines for several prompts. The creators go into details within that intro portion of the book on why each prompt is included, and how you should think about them when you answer each. Here’s a sample shot of the pages:

The idea behind the journal is that you fill out the top portion (light) of one page immediately upon waking (taking no more than 5 minutes of your day), and then fill out the bottom (dark) portion right before you head to bed. (I complete mine at the kitchen table right before brushing my teeth at both ends of the day.)

The morning prompts prep you to consciously enter the day thinking about what you want to accomplish and doing so with a positive outlook. The night prompts get you to look back on the day and appreciate those wonderful moments that may have been fleeting, but were nonetheless important and impactful.

I could bore you folks to tears with all the data the world (new-agers and scientific peoples alike) has collected about the influence of positive thinking. I for one am a pain in the ass cynic as soon as I hear the words “positive thinking”, but I will whole-heartedly admit, this journal is the strongest case yet for confirming all that mushy, happy-happy data.

You will be amazed, especially in this day and age of screaming, angry headlines brimming with negativity, how much you’ll appreciate the little things by simply reflecting on them. If you keep up with the journal, you’ll find yourself being almost ridiculous with gratitude (i.e. “Damn, that’s one sweet looking manhole cover right there. Look at that thing. I wonder how long it took them to create the design for it…going to note that in my journal tonight.”)

If nothing else, the authors said it best in the intro when they spoke about how we fly through life so fast, we almost slip into these levels of brainlessness. The 5-Minute Journal fights that time-wasting mentality by pumping the brakes and making you more present in your daily life.

You can certainly just chalk up my experience as an isolated, exaggerated anecdote. But keep in mind this magical little guy has been featured on Lifehacker, The Tim Ferris Show Podcast, Fortune Magazine and many more. Feel free to go check it out (or buy it!) at it’s website here:

https://www.intelligentchange.com/products/the-five-minute-journal

If you have any questions or feedback, hit me up!

Stay happy Steemit Champions!!