Playing the Glad Game is Being Grateful

As many of you know, I study joy voraciously. In many, if not all, of the books and articles that I read, each author has at least one chapter about how the best way to discover joy is to be grateful. Test me. Read a book on joy and see. For me, that started with One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. That whole book is about discovering eucharisto (to be grateful; to give thanks). It’s a beautiful analogy using communion (The Last Supper) to discuss the importance of giving thanks. (I’ll let you read Ms. Voskamp’s book for more information.) As a result of reading One Thousand Gifts, I began my own Gratitude list, but rather than call it such, I referred to my list as “What brings me joy?” They mean the same thing, after all, and I wanted to be sure to use the word joy in my Gratitude list.

Thus started a journey that will never end for me. I am daily, hourly, each moment choosing to find something to be joyful about—to be grateful for because everything that brings me joy causes me to be grateful that it is in my life and everything that I am grateful for brings me great joy! See? It’s an unbreakable cycle that is well worth the few moments it takes me to make note of.

I no longer know how many “things” are on my list of what brings me joy—what I am grateful for. I stopped counting around 700+-something. In some ways, I envy Voskamp’s ability to actually continue to number her list, but yet, even from the start, I wanted my list to be my own list. I do not mind taking an idea from someone else, but ultimately, I have to take that person’s idea and make it uniquely mine even if what is changed is nothing more than what I call it. That is important to me. So I have no idea any longer exactly how many items are on my gratitude list. Big deal. What is important is that I have continued keeping my list and I will continue to do so.

By the way, as I said, there are a number of books wherein the authors discuss the importance of gratitude on our joy journey:

1. Fight Back with Joy by Margaret Feinberg
2. How Happiness Happens by Max Lucado
3. Bursting with Happiness by Lisa Dimino White
4. Fresh Joy by Heidi McLaughlin

And the list goes on. These are just a few to give you an idea to get started if you so choose to read about joy and its direct relationship with gratitude.

One book that many might not think belongs on this list is Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter.

Wait a minute, Polly. Pollyanna is someone who is overly exuberant or enthusiastic. How in the world does gratitude fit in with someone who only sees the glass half full all the time?

It goes like this: Pollyanna’s dad teaches her to play The Glad Game one day when they had opened the missionary barrel they had received and Pollyanna is, once again, disappointed because there isn’t a doll. Seeing her disappointment, Pollyanna’s dad comes up with The Glad Game wherein they would find something to be glad about in spite of their disappointment. Since he made a game out of it, it becomes something fun for Pollyanna to do, so she continues doing it even after his death.

While many have decided that Pollyanna’s ability to find something to be glad about even in the midst of disappointment to be overly optimistic, they miss the whole point of what Pollyanna’s dad was teaching his daughter: to be grateful—no matter what and regardless of her circumstances. He helped his daughter begin her own Gratitude list, something which she continued to use throughout her life.

Like me calling my list “What brings me joy?” Pollyanna calls it playing the Glad Game, but both boil down to the exact same thing Ann Voskamp did when she began writing her list of what she is grateful for. The only difference between each of our lists is what we call it.

Ann Voskamp literally calls her list a Gratitude List.

I call my list of what I am grateful for “What brings me Joy?”

Pollyanna creates her own list of what she is grateful for by playing The Glad Game.

So. . .if you, too, want joy in your life (and peace and hope and so much more), will you begin keeping your own list of what makes you grateful? If so, what will you call your list?