#TheGoodList is not a new concept, hardly original, as there are a number of gratitude chasers sharing slivers of their happiness under a wide variety of hashtags. My friend Erin has a gratitude practice she calls #LovelyThings. Another friend shares #3ThingsToBeHappyAbout. The list, and lists, go on.
If you’re inclined to join, no matter the hashtag, I suppose I do keep a few principles. These aren’t rules, necessarily. Rules are to be offered by members of authority, and really, who can safely call themselves an authority on Instagram?
And yet: here’s something.
—
The truth is, there is a generation that has blurred the lines between the documentation of our lives and the distribution of our lives. We trap sacred moments and offer them for public consumption. We wield ourselves into broadcasters, talking into tiny screens to share on Instagram stories, like TV reporters without hairspray and stick mics. We turn our days, our travels, our children into regularly scheduled programming. We replace contentment with content, and we call it a life.
#TheGoodList is not that.
It is, simply put, a naming of happy moments. It is for surveying our days, for calling it good. It is for noticing, for paying attention, for practicing the fine and weighty art of gratitude.
The practicing is the good stuff.
The publishing? Entirely optional.
