One of the wonderful things about gratitude is that if you practise it enough, after a while you start feeling it spontaneously.
For several years now, our family has been in the habit of doing the occasional “gratitude countdown” at the dinner table. It’s pretty much what it sounds like; we go around the table and say something we’re grateful for, usually something that happened that day.
At first, yes, it did feel a bit like the type of forced team-building exercise that the cast of The Office might be put through, but like any habit it became second nature quite quickly. I would see a cool bird, or someone would show some small kindness towards me, and I’d file it away just in case we did a gratitude countdown that night.
Before long I was feeling daily bursts of gratitude out of nowhere. Brushing my teeth, I would nestle my thumb into the spot on the toothbrush designed specifically for thumb-nestling, and I’d think, “how cool that somebody designed that.” I’d lie on my back in a park and follow a plane as it passed by overhead and be struck by the absolutely ridiculous magic that is modern aviation.
This time of year – end of school, start of summer, lots of daylight – is prime gratitude time. So sit back or lie down and enjoy the anthem to gratitude that is “Make You Feel That Way” by Blackalicious.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The vocals. Gift of Gab, who died five years ago this week, was a fantastic rapper. On this track his tone is tinged with a wisdom-infused nostalgia that makes him feel like a trusted older brother giving life advice to a wide-eyed younger sibling. Impressive for an MC who managed to make the alphabet sound aggressive.
2. The music. Chief Xcel was the DJ / Producer of the duo, and he did what great hip-hop producers of that era did so often: he took a loop from an obscure, cheezy 80s jazz song and gave it new life.
3. The dialogue at the end. The speaker struggles to explain the feeling that the song has been expressing for the past three minutes, and he finally concludes that, “it’s love. It’s love.”
And he’s right. It’s not gratitude or toothbrush design or the miracle of aviation. It’s love.
Recommended listening activity:
Appreciating.