I Am Thankful For... by Shlok Sharma

Gratitude, when expressed by a child, carries a clarity that adults rarely achieve. Children haven't yet learned to be self-conscious about sincerity, and their lists of what they're thankful for tend to have an honesty that more sophisticated reflection can obscure.

This piece by Shlok Sharma, written as a Thanksgiving exercise, captures something of that quality. He is thankful for family — parents who support him, a sister who drives him a little crazy but whom he clearly loves, grandparents who are warm and far away. He is thankful for friends, for school, for the opportunities that living in America has given his family.

What's striking about children's gratitude lists is what they don't include. They're rarely thankful for abstract things — prosperity, freedom, good fortune. They're thankful for the specific and the immediate: the person who helped with homework, the sport they played on Saturday, the meal they liked.

Adults could learn something from this specificity. Research on the psychology of gratitude — notably the work of Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough — finds that it's the concrete and particular that produces the most genuine emotional benefit: not general thankfulness for having a good life, but specific attention to the things and people that actually make the days good.

Shlok's list is a reminder that gratitude, practiced young and kept specific, is one of the better habits a person can develop. The things he's thankful for will change over time. The practice itself, if it sticks, will serve him well.