Embracing Gratitude: Numbering Our Days Wisely

"Teach us to number our days so that we might gain a Heart full of wisdom, and as we learn to be grateful the exercise today is going to be precisely that to number our days. What do we do when we number our days? Well, when you number something, you recognize that there is not an unlimited quantity to it, that you have a finite Supply, and that's true above all other things with time. We just have this one life and one day comes and this day right here will not come again." [00:50:42]

"It could be filled with what is noble and glorious. It could be filled with difficulty or suffering. You could fill it with gratitude for each breath, for every conversation, for every gift, or with ingratitude or complaint, but it will never come back again. And so we need to learn to number our days so that we gain a heart of wisdom." [00:88:02]

"Jamie Kurtz is a researcher at James Madison University. Fascinating study found that when college students were asked to reflect on the end of their college experience, if they were to focus on the fact that it's going to be limited, that the end will come relatively soon, not only did they experience more gratitude for this time because they recognized the worth and the goodness of it, they actually spent their time more wisely." [00:108:54]

"There was a book and then a one-man stage play that I saw Years Ago by the actor Billy Crystal, and it was called 700 Sundays. Teach us to number our days. This is what he writes. This is how he ends the beginning of the book. He's talking about his father. My father worked so hard for us all the time. He held on two jobs, including weekend nights. The only day we really had with him alone was Sunday." [00:146:04]

"I played tennis with my dad for 50 years. We played in tournaments from New York to California. He came to visit one time in Menlo Park, and I was going to go into work. It was a Saturday afternoon, and he'd gone just to hit serves, kind of practice some of his shots at tennis courts at a school nearby. Of course, they don't even exist anymore." [00:258:48]

"Well, I got a little time before I need to go into work, so I'm just going to go there, and we'll hit some balls. And I hit balls with my dad as I had done for I don't know how many thousands of hours over so many decades. And not too long after that, he was playing one time, went back for an overhead and kind of lost his balance." [00:278:16]

"35 years ago or so, I was in Whittier one time, and we were staying with Nancy's Mom and Dad, Alan Verna, and I took Laura to see a movie. Interestingly, recently somebody asked at a dinner party where I was, what's your favorite Disney princess, and I had an immediate response: Snow White. And it's because of that day 35 years ago when I took our oldest daughter to see her very first movie." [00:366:78]

"Teach us to number our days. I think now, when I would do this exercise that we're gonna do right now, is you might think about something in your life that is limited, time-limited, to help you value it, to help you appreciate it because we're learning to be grateful because we have a problem seeing the value in the goodness of life." [00:481:62]

"A little baby comes, and I get to hold that little body, and you know the smell of a little baby. I don't know why it's such a sweet thing, and the feeling of that skin and that sense that you get when they fall asleep on your chest that it's like somehow they just trust you and they just abandon themselves to you." [00:505:56]

"So this is the invitation for you now, and if you're doing a gratitude Journal, you can get that out now or sometime later on today. If you're not, you can just do this in your mind right now for a few moments. This is from Robert Evans' book, Gratitude Works, where he talks about journaling when people believe that a positive life event is about to end." [00:543:30]

"Choose an activity, an event, an experience, or relationship that may be ending soon. Keep in mind that you only have a short amount of time left to spend on doing this thing or being with this person. Teach us to number our days. Maybe it's a job that you get to do or a class in which you get to learn or a team to which you get to contribute." [00:584:39]

"This chapter of your life will end soon. Try to select an experience in which you have maybe between one and three months remaining. Given how little time you have left, write about why you are so grateful, and as you do that, whisper this little prayer because we can't do this for ourselves. We can't, but God can. God, teach us to number our days." [00:619:14]