Gratitude begins as attention, because you cannot be thankful for what you never noticed.

The commute was survivable. The child slept through. The pain in your back was absent today. None of it announces itself, because the absence of trouble is always silent.

This is not positive thinking, it is accuracy. A life reported honestly includes the ordinary functioning things, and most of us edit them out of the summary entirely.

Slow down at one moment today and describe it properly. The taste, the light, the person's face. Attention is the raw material, thankfulness is what it becomes, and noticing trains like anything else.