Why Gratitudes are Transient
Why “Thankful” Was Never Enough for Me
Every morning I sit. I write. I read.
It is not complicated. There is no app. There is no guru. There is a chair, a quiet hour, and a practice I have done long enough that skipping it feels like leaving the house without shoes. And somewhere in that hour, I do one specific thing to center myself.
I think about what I value.
Notice I did not say I think about what I’m thankful for. Those are not the same thing. And I’d argue the difference matters more than almost anything else in the gratitude industry wants you to believe.
Thankful Is Weather. Values Are Rock.
Here is the problem with “thankful.”
I am thankful for the blue sky this morning. I am thankful for white sandy beaches. I am thankful for the food on my table. All true. All good. And all of it can change by tomorrow.
The sky clouds over. The beach gets a red flag day. Thankfulness, the way most people practice it, is a weather report. It tells you what conditions you happened to wake up in. Useful? Sure. A foundation? No.
A weather report is not something you can build a house on.
So what is?
Values.
Values are rocks. They do not move because the sky changed. They do not rotate daily like a gratitude journal prompt. They are the things you would defend if someone tried to take them — and that word, defend, is the test. You don’t defend the blue sky. You can’t. But you absolutely defend what you value.
Let me show you mine.
I value my decision-making freedom. And I protect it. Fiercely. Every structure in my life — how I built my business, how I manage capital, how I schedule my days — exists in service of one outcome: nobody gets to tell me what I must do next. That did not happen by accident. It happened because I identified the value first and then made decisions that defended it now for at least the last 16 years. How I got to this place is a different story.
I value my homes. Not as line items on a balance sheet. As places of refuge — on 30A, and in Costa Rica. Places where family gathers. Places where the door closes and the world stays outside. I have written before that you cannot build sand castles with your grandbabies on a pile of Bitcoin. The homes are where the sand castles happen.
I value the beach and the water. Enough that I centered my entire life on them. Two residences, two countries, one common denominator: salt water within reach. That is not a preference. A preference is whether you like your coffee black. This is architecture. I built a life around it. Indeed I have built the Jabbour Luxury Group around it and invited in people that have these same values. Not the exact same places and not the exact same definition of Home or Beach and Water, but the same center of self. To value a life lived with some intention, Family, place, direction.
I value the love of my wife and my family. And I protect that too. Protect is the operative word again. You do not protect things you are merely thankful for. You protect what you cannot imagine living without. We have our moments. We have our challenges. We debate in business and in direction. That is the value of it too.
Four values. Four rocks. They were the same yesterday. They will be the same tomorrow.
Then There Are Joys
Now — what about gratitude? The daily stuff? The small recurring moments?
I don’t throw those out. I rename them. I call them Joys. This came from reading the books of Arthur Brooks that many call the “Happiness Guru”. I translated those readings into a few ways to think about this like. Haves and Wants and Values and Joys.
Joys are the things that repeat, that bring moments of happiness, and that we deliberately strive to repeat. Read that again. We strive to repeat them. That is what separates a joy from a pleasant accident.
I get joy from a walk on the beach. From a bike ride. From dinner with my wife. From working alongside my team. And yes — I get joy from success in my business, and maybe even more from watching my team members succeed as they grow into who they are becoming.
Here is the distinction in one line:
Values are what you protect. Joys are what you repeat.
Values are Life Pillars. Joys are the events that grow from that foundation of Pillars.
Why the Distinction Matters
You might be asking — does any of this matter, or is it just word games? It matters. Here’s why.
When you only practice thankfulness, you train your attention on conditions. And conditions are outside your control. The economist in me will tell you that anchoring your wellbeing to variables you cannot influence is a bad trade. You become a passenger in your own contentment.
But when you separate values from joys, something shifts.
Your values tell you what to protect. They become a decision filter. Should I take this meeting? Does it threaten my decision-making freedom? Should I chase this opportunity? Does it pull me away from the water, from the family, from the refuge? Suddenly half your decisions make themselves. The rock does the work.
Your joys tell you what to schedule. Literally. If the bike ride brings joy, the bike ride goes on the calendar. If dinner with my wife brings joy, it does not get bumped for a phone call. Joys are repeatable by design — so design your days to repeat them.
Thankfulness observes your life. Values and joys build it.
The Morning Practice
So tomorrow morning, try this instead of the standard gratitude list.
Ask two questions.
What do I value?
Write down the rocks. The things you protect. There should not be twenty of them. If you have twenty values, you have none. I have four.
What brings me joy?
Write down the rhythms. The repeatable moments. Then look at your calendar and ask the honest question — am I actually striving to repeat them, or am I just hoping they happen?
The blue sky will come and go. Be thankful for it when it shows up. But build on the rock. And repeat the rhythm. That is the practice. That is the whole thing.
Values and joys.