What Gratitude Journal Prompts Are Really About

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 06:00:00 -0500

A little over ten years ago, a doctor told me my blood pressure was too high and suggested I try something he called stress reduction. Linda brought home a book about gratitude journaling the same week, and she had the look she gets when she is right about something and would prefer I simply accept it rather than make her say it out loud.

So I started a gratitude journal.

From the Editor: Midsummer 2026

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 06:00:00 -0500

The stack on the porch never gets smaller. I know this about myself. I add to it faster than I read, which means most of what’s out there isn’t current. It’s a record of what I meant to get to.

Tuesday morning I finally reached the bottom. Not because I’d worked through everything (I’d been pulling from the middle, the way you do) but because the stack tipped over in the night and I had to restack it. At the bottom was a slim book I’d carried through two moves: a collection of editor’s letters from an American magazine that ran for thirty years through the middle of the last century. I’d read it first at an old job and underlined things I’ve mostly forgotten. It had been on the porch stack since April.

Attention on Sunday Evening Review

What Gratitude Journal Prompts Are Really About

From the Editor: Midsummer 2026