读者文摘:我的感谢之年(1)（在线收听）

In January 2018, I was commuting from Brooklyn to New Jersey.

2018年1月，我从布鲁克林到新泽西上班。

I have two little kids and a busy consulting business, so a quiet train ride felt like a mini vacation.

我有两个小孩和一个业务繁忙的咨询公司，所以安静的坐火车就像一个小假期。

Yet I found myself spending that precious time slack-jawed, scrolling through my social media feeds.

然而，我发现自己把那段宝贵的时间用于发呆，浏览我的社交媒体。

One day, I put down my phone and started writing thank-you notes to people who had contributed to a fundraiser I had organized.

一天，我放下手机，开始给那些为我组织的募捐活动捐款的人写感谢信。

When I got off the train that day, I was in a noticeably better mood.

那天我下火车时，心情明显好了许多。

The next day, I wrote more thank-yous — and felt the same afterglow.

第二天，我又写了更多的感谢信——也体会到同样的美好感受。

When I finished writing the notes, I counted them up.

当我写完感谢信后，我数了一下。

There were 31—one for every day of the year so far.

有31封，到目前为止，一月份每天一封。

Something clicked. What if I kept it up?

我突然想到，如果我坚持写下去会怎么样呢？

I decided to write one thank-you note for every day of that year.

我决定为那一年的每一天写一封感谢信。

I had no shortage of people I was grateful for.

我不缺少要去感激的人。

So I picked out a different theme for each month to keep on task.

所以，我为每个月挑选了一个不同的主题来继续这个任务。

January was charity—and, thankfully, I had already completed that goal.

一月份是慈善活动，谢天谢地，我已经完成了这个目标。

February would be dedicated to neighbors, I decided, and I thought of a dozen names right away.

我决定把二月份献给邻居，我马上想到了很多名字。

I remembered when the owners of our local bookstore let me and my five year-old son, Henry, in before the store opened

我记得当地书店的老板在店铺营业前让我和五岁的儿子亨利进去，

and offered to play his favorite soundtrack (Mary Poppins).

还播放了他最喜欢的音乐（《欢乐满人间》）。

I recalled when our 14-year old babysitter dropped off a bag of old board games for our kids to play.

我记得我们14岁的保姆送了一袋旧棋盘游戏给孩子们玩。

Writing the notes wasn't all that time-consuming: Each was two or three sentences long, taking just a few minutes to compose.

写感谢信并不那么费时：每封感谢信有两三句话长，只需要几分钟就能写完。

I focused on the person I was writing to and what I wanted to say, and the words came fairly easily.

我把注意力集中在我要感谢的人和我想说的话上，这些话很容易就能说出来了。

I quickly learned I couldn't do it while listening to a podcast or toggling between articles.

我很快意识到，我不能一边听播客，或看文章时写感谢信。

That focus felt refreshing.

那种专注让人觉得耳目一新。

It was good for my brain, which had been trained to wander, alighting on this feed or that e-mail, darting from app to app.

这对我的大脑很有好处，因为我的大脑已经变得总走神，关注这条消息或那封电子邮件，从一个应用跳到另一个。

It felt meditative to look at a blank white space with a pen in my hand, thinking about a person and the way he or she had helped me.

我手里拿着一支笔，看着空白的纸张，想着一个人，以及他/她帮助我的方式，这让我感到自己在沉思。