The Super Cooper List

How hard can it be, right? Make a list once a day - you don't even have to write it down. You just do it in your head. Before you get ready for the day, or at night, before you go to bed - you get to chose.

So why in hell have I NOT managed to do this?!

It is odd to see myself come up with all sorts of excuses just because I do not want to list the things I am grateful for. As if that makes them more important, more real. As if I could accidentally jinx something. It's absurd, I know.
But I have been thinking about it and here's what I came up with.
Actually listing things, possibly even writing them down if you are so inclined, makes them indeed more real. Even the process of simply thinking about them, seems to pull them out of that big bag of unconscious every-day patterns of behaviour, of thoughts and highlights them. It almost seems like you are - in that precise moment of writing them down, of naming them out loud - consciously taking responsibility. You become accountable. That is even more true for listing things that you want. And I am not talking fame and fast cars and riches beyond whatever...
The things you may want to be, to become, to achieve. They grow the minute you put them onto a piece of paper, or simply out into the universe, but not just so on a whim but consciously. Like you actually mean it.
And THAT is what freaks me out. The meaning-it part.
Why?

Because we live in a world of make-believe and lies and insincerity and sugar-coating and sweet-nothings and what have you. So you don't necessarily get a lot of practice in actually meaning something. At least that is how I feel sometimes. It starts with "Have a nice day now" and ends with "Phantastic offer..." and there is A LOT that goes in the middle of those two.
I am not the kind of person that goes around telling fibs all the time. Not at all and that is not really the point I am making. I am just saying that sincerity is rare these days and one is often taken by surprise when it suddenly shows up.

So what, I am a bit of a coward and an indecisive woman. I get taken aback by sincerety because all the bullshit gets to me sometimes and I forget that there are nice people out there. (May I remind you of my landlord who definitely does not belong in the aforementioned nice-people category, so excuse me for being jaded. 'course he is not the only one, but who am I telling this.. we have all been there.)

How did I get here? Oh yes, the list. Well, I am none the wiser. I still have not really made one yet, let alone the list of all my intentions.

Hm, perhaps that would be something to do on New Year's Eve.

Being Bradley Cooper

Occasionally I do listen to BBC Radio 1 - the other day, lo and behold, I am witness to Bradley Cooper's musings on the Chris Moyles Show. Well, he was not so much musing, he was in fact being a bit boring, seemingly bored and generally not too chatty or, come to think of it, not THAT bloody glamorous, nice, zany, outgoing, or whatever the hell it is you're supposed to become when you're a Hollywood A-lister. So - bummer and for the life of me, I still cannot find it in me to swoon over him. And I do not understand my fellow females who do.
Sorry, ladies. But then again, all the more for you, eh?

BUT! One thing stuck in my head and I was actually pricking up my ears at that precise moment in the interview - which let's face it was not much of an interview at all - that was when Mr Cooper mentioned his gratitude list. Everyone in the studio was like WHAT? Yeah, me too.
So he goes into explaining what it is and why he does it and when. Well, we all pretty much get the idea, I believe.
Mr. Cooper of course finds ten things EVERY DAY to put on this list of gratitude. Hm, I wonder whether I can do that? I wonder if 5 is ok, too? I am sure they can be little things, too.
Though in Coop's world they are sure to be slightly bigger.

Today I wish to explain gratitude for my extended contract with 20th Century Fox.
I would also like to thank my agent for sealing the deal, etc etc. 
I am grateful for getting paid quite large sums of money. 
Oh, and of course, I am thankful for my looks, er my parents and ... err, wait, uhh, oh yeah - the on-going work of UNICEF, Greenpeace . . . 

I am kidding, of course!

He's never going to mention UNICEF in that list.

No, what I  am beginning to wonder though is whether this is not simply some kind of daily practice run for his Oscar acceptance speech (or Globe or whatever) - I can picture him/his agent sorting through all these old gratitude lists shortly before the big moment comes and he is asked to appear to accept his award and then the invitation also mentions that it'd be nice to utter a few words of dedication, thankfulness, jollyness and fun - well, whatever the hell your level of intoxication at that stage allows for, really.

Yes, I am being awful. I know.

And I shall stop and actually admit that the idea of such a list is rather beautiful.

When DO we take time to look at the things we might be grateful for, much less name them and show proper gratitude in whatever way we may wish to do so. There is, after all, no rule book. Which is a good thing, come to think of it. But it also means that we (as in mankind) are always and forever getting away with being ungrateful or too busy or too fabulous to actually consider being thankful for a change.
It takes no time.
Instead - much more importantly, it takes humility, humbleness. Things some of us never learn or never seem to be able to show. And it takes awareness to recognise that even though the good things in life may be free, they still should be truly and deeply appreciated from time to time.

Hell, if Bradley can do it, why not any other person on this planet?!
OKAY! Always start with yourself.
So, why not I?!