Monday

I went to the doctor today and, while I was waiting for the doctor to see me, I wrote out today’s gratitude list - so you’ll see a lot medical-themed pieces of gratitude in this one.

  1. Doctors discovering that they should wash their hands before seeing patients in the 1800s.

  2. The polio vaccine

  3. The small pox vaccine

  4. Vaccines for other deadly or debilitating diseases

  5. Antibiotics

  6. Clean running water

  7. Soap

  8. Pharmacies

  9. Society being more or less intact

  10. A warm bed to sleep in

  11. Food to eat

  12. Water to drink

  13. Health organizations

  14. Medical charities

  15. The fact that most people feel good when donating to charities or people in need

  16. Shoes, absolutely incredible. I can walk all over the hot tarmac with these things

  17. Sunscreen

  18. Birth control

  19. Doctors who want to help people

  20. People who want to help people in general

  21. Socks, solid invention there

  22. Tampons, I shudder every time I hear about what they used to use

  23. Germ theory, the fact that we discovered pathogens, not the germs, themselves

  24. Microscopes, wild that there's tiny shit right in front of us that we can't even see.

  25. Telescopes, even wilder that there's REALLY BIG shit that we also can't see.

  26. Health screenings, whoever decided that we should find out sooner rather than later was thinking ahead.

  27. Sterilized needles, kill the germs before puncturing skin? Really appreciate you.

  28. Good people who don't hurt you when they could

  29. People who try to solve environmental problems

  30. People who try to solve medical problems

  31. Backpacks, genius. Put stuff on my back, not in my hands.

  32. One of our community members explaining to me the things I’ve talked about that left a mark on them.

The next time you’re stuck waiting around somewhere, consider writing out your gratitude list for the day. It’ll pass the time and put you in a better mood.