The Sunrise Practice: The Day Is Finite and Beautiful

The light starts to change. I stop what I'm doing, take out my phone, and take the picture.

I've done this for years, sunrise and sunset, not occasionally but habitually. If you've looked around this site, you've seen some of them. Most of the photos here were taken by me in the course of living, and plenty of them are sunrises and sunsets.

Each one is a reminder of the line I live by: life is a gift. It's meant to be pursued, shared, and savored.

Why photograph a sunrise?

Because the practice is small enough to actually do every day. That's the whole design.

Plenty of men agree that gratitude matters and still won't keep a gratitude journal. It feels like homework, it takes time they don't think they have, and after a week it's sitting in a drawer. I understand that completely.

The sunrise practice asks for almost nothing. Notice the light. Take the photo. Remember that the day is finite and beautiful. That's it. It's the gratitude discipline made visual, with your eyes open and a phone in your hand.

What it does, in my experience, is interrupt the skip. For years before my diagnosis I was skipping across the surface of life like a rock across a pond: work, volleyball, flipping houses, fast and shallow. A sunrise stops the skip for a moment. You can't photograph it well while you're thinking about your inbox. For thirty seconds you're actually where you are.

How does gratitude bookend the day?

The photo is one piece. The other is what I say when I wake up and before I go to sleep.

Every morning, on waking, I recite this:

"Thank you for this amazing day. May the spirit of life move through me in order to help others. Please give me the energy, awareness, presence, and purpose to live youthfully in abundance. Life is a Gift, and I am grateful for today!"

Every night, before I sleep:

"Thank you for all the blessings in my life, large and small. I release all negativity from today and welcome calm into my being. I am ready to wake up as a magnet for abundance, clarity, and peace."

The pair bookends the day. The morning sets the intention. The night releases whatever the day left on me, so I never go to bed angry or fearful. Between the two, the sunrise or the sunset is the reminder in the middle.

Gratitude is active. Express it, and share it as well. A sunrise kept on your phone is a private moment. Shared, it becomes a small way to positively impact someone else.

How do you start a practice like this?

Start with whichever end of the day you actually see. If you're up before the sun, take the sunrise. If you're not, take the sunset on your way home. Do it for a month without skipping, the same way you'd keep any other promise to yourself.

Then add the words. You don't need mine. Write two or three sentences of your own, one for the morning and one for the night, and say them every day.

The day is finite. Most days, you'll get a reminder of that in the sky. All you have to do is look up.

When was the last time you stopped for one?

~b