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Just One Good Thing Today

Re-connect to your creativity with gratitude

This article originally appeared, in a slightly different form, on my personal blog, Clinsightshere. I have added, edited, clarified and expanded the original post for publication here in The BoldBrush Letter. This topic appears in my upcoming book on the liberating power of the creative act, The Sovereign Artist - Sign up for the waitlist.

Editor’s Note: In two days, this post will be locked and is available only to paid members because we don’t want this duplicate content on the open web in a way that might draw traffic away from the original post. You can always read the entire post here.

We are sharing this essay in The BoldBrush Letter because the underlying idea applies to all artists. Please enjoy.

When it comes into tapping into peace, love, joy and creativity, many wiser souls than me have enlightened us about the power of gratitude. The way I finally brought gratitude regularly into my life is my own form of a “gratitude journal.”

I keep it extremely simple. I have set the bar ridiculously low to ensure that I’ll actually do it daily. If the process was too complicated, I would blow it off.

What I do is this: I simply try to write about something good every day. It doesn't matter what, specifically, but I notice, and record just one good thing. Most of the entries are only one or two sentences, small enough to fit in a tweet (I originally started the practice on Twitter, so got in the habit if keeping each entry short to stay within the 280 character limit). I no longer post every entry publicly, but I have continued the practice.

Each day, I mentally look back over what has transpired to uncover at least one (although more than one is fine!) single joyful, inspiring, meaningful, wondrous slice of time where, no matter what other problems or challenges darken my soul, the light of creation reaches me. Sometimes, a particular moment stands out. Sometimes, I have to work a little harder to think of something. On “bad” days, I can always simply write, “I’m alive.” If it happened to be the worst day of your life, you could even write “at least today is over.”

This practice, over time, “forces” you to start being more aware in every moment. In a way, it’s a sort of “back door” mindfulness technique. Eventually you start to subconsciously ask, in every moment, am I grateful for this? You’ll be surprised how often the answer is yes.

If one lived for 30,000 days, one could live, and perhaps even remember, 30,000 good, inspiring moments in a lifetime. Is that enough? It seems like possibly it would be. 30,000 joyful moments adds up to a joyful life, doesn’t it?

So far, even on the worst, darkest of days, I’ve been able to lift up the dark veil to unmask one tiny moment of goodness. Even on the very worst day I’ve experienced since starting this practice, there has been something, however small, to keep the tiny flame inside burning until the next day arrives. A few times, that one thing has been as simple as you made it through the day, tomorrow will be better. Hopefully that is a universal truth of some sort; for I am afraid to live a day with absolutely no light whatsoever. But that is just another fear to overcome.

For me, the best way to notice a magical moment is to be prepared to write it down; to go into my days stalking these moments as a hunter stalks his prey. The desire to write, to quench my thirst puts me on the lookout for something worth noticing, and if I notice something, the desire to write about it makes me drink deeply from the cup of the moment’s details.

The one caveat is that sometimes, I catch myself thinking about how to write about the moment while I’m living it. I must remember not to do that! I must resist the urge, while experiencing the moment, to think about specifics of sentences, grammar, or the attempt to say something unique that I haven't said before! That can come later! It’s a tricky balance between experiencing and composing. Still, on balance, I've enjoyed life far more since I started making this daily ritual a "goal."

I have found that this practice pays particular dividends when I look back on these captured moments later. To my delight, I have discovered that one or two sentences are enough to jog my memory, not only of the wonders of the specific moment, but of others around it in time. These precious experiences, previously, I absolutely would have lost to the sands of time had I not written them down. For without writing about them, the true feeling, the true details, are lost forever in the aether.

Through these snippets of beauty, I recall, for example, my beautiful Lily, the angel-cat that saved us, before she passed away, recorded in my hand:

"The golden color of her eyes with the reddish-brownish line outlining her iris. Her pink nose, with white fur up to her eyes, with the little tuft of fur that was always slightly out of place, then blending into the tabby of her "mask". The top of her head, split evenly between orange and black fur just starting to go down the back of her neck. Her ears, those cute ears, one with a tiny tear. And holding her paws, she would spread her toes out and hold the tip of my finger."

How could I have forgotten? But I had! But now it has all come flooding back again. It’s all still inside my head, but the writing of it is the key that unlocks the door where it is stored.

These details are vivid once again for me, years later, at the cost of simply a few minutes of writing. Lily comes back to life for just a moment and, in in that process, so do I.

Or, scanning these entries, I notice one about a beautiful Friday evening, January 13th, "Sitting on the floor, listening to Miles Davis and John Coltrane, drinking a glass of wine, while our cat Bella sits on your lap slowing opening and closing her eyes and looking up at the speakers as she also enjoys the jazz."

I can remember that day vividly now. And hundreds more, just there waiting for me to add wonder to the present by briefly re-enjoying a past extraordinarily ordinary moment, which magically re-energizes the possibilities of present.

There seem to be a few common themes that recur: I write about nature, inspiration in my work, moments with my family, but one area I haven't explored much are my deepest feelings, which perhaps is a fourth area of opportunity to be more self-aware of the miracles that occur on the inside as well as the outside. Yet another miracle to be added to my growing well of gratitude in an attempt to build a life well-lived.

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Referenced Posts

The Call of Wonder

The Divine Singularity in our Core

How to Grow Humanity’s Creativity

The Courage to Find Your Self

The Healing Virtue of the Virtuoso

The Inner Master

No AI Zone: Everything written in this post (and all my posts) is written 100% by me, Clint “Clintavo” Watson, a flesh and blood human seeking to grow my soul and come home my truest self; for that is the essence of creativity. I do not use AI to assist me with writing — that would deny me the very growth of my world through writing that I seek.

I only rarely use AI images with my (non-AI) writing. On the rare occasions I do use an AI image (usually fiction), I also feature at least one artwork by a human artist with image credits and links to their work or, if I can’t find a suitable image, I donate a free month of website service to one of our artist customers at my SaaS company, FASO Artist Websites.

Poetic expression, spiritual ideas, and musings upon beauty, truth and goodness should be free to spread far and wide. Hence, I have not paywalled the work on Reflections of the Sovereign Artist. However, if you’re able to become a paid subscriber, I’d be eternally grateful. It would help, encourage and enable me to continue exploring these topics and allow me to keep it accessible for a world that is in desperate need of beauty, truth, goodness and love. — Creatively, Clintavo.

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