How Gratitude & Journalling Make You Happier.

The art of remembering that the world isn’t against you.

At first glance, practising gratitude seems pointless. Nothing more than a sanctimonious, new-age, waste of time. At least that’s how I used to think about it. But it turns out that there’s perfectly simple, logical, and scientifically valid reasoning behind gratitude’s ability to makes us feel happier. To understand what that is, we first need to understand a few features of the way our memory works.

The perils of a bad memory.

Humans are pessimistic by default. Yes, you too. This isn’t a character flaw, it’s a logical strategy for keeping us alive. After all, if we presume that there’s danger where there isn’t any, the worst that will happen is that we’ll miss out on a fun opportunity or waste some time going the long way around. But if we presume safety where there’s danger, it’s quite possible that it’ll be the last mistake we ever make.

For this reason, the mind prioritises negative memories. Situations and events that we don’t want to repeat stick in our minds more easily so that we remember not to repeat them. So far, so logical. The problem is that this combines with another psychological quirk to mess with our sense of reality.