Small Mercies, Counted Slowly

There’s a particular kind of tiredness that has nothing to do with sleep. You wake up rested and still feel behind. The to do list refreshes itself overnight, somehow longer than when you left it.

I’ve noticed that on those mornings, my mind goes looking for what’s wrong before it looks for what’s right. It’s efficient, in a grim sort of way. Spot the threat first. Sort the good stuff out later, if there’s time.

There usually isn’t time.

So I’ve been trying something small. Before I touch my phone, before the day starts pulling at me from six directions, I sit for a minute and count three things. Not the big things. Not “alhamdulillah for my health and family,” those are true, but they’re also so large they’ve become background noise, said too often to actually feel anymore.

Small things. The kind that don’t make it onto a gratitude list because they seem too minor to count.

This morning it was this: my mother calling just to say hi, for no reason at all. The kolomee stall guy quietly paying for my breakfast before I could even get my wallet out. Running into old friends from sixth form at a tahlil, the kind of reunion nobody plans but everyone’s glad for.

Why the small ones matter more

There’s a reason I’ve started favouring the small mercies over the large ones. The large ones are true but distant, health, family, a roof overhead, and precisely because they’re so foundational, we stop actually noticing them. They become the water we swim in, not the thing we clock.

The small ones are different. Specific enough to actually register. And registering, I reckon, is the whole point of shukr. Not just believing you’re grateful, but actually feeling it land somewhere.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) was known to notice small things: a kind word, a shared meal, an act of ease extended to someone struggling. Not because the big blessings didn’t matter, but because paying attention to the small ones is what keeps gratitude alive day to day, rather than something you perform once during hardship and forget once things are sorted again.

The Stoics had their own version of this, minus the theology. Noticing what’s ordinary and choosing to treat it as remarkable anyway. Marcus Aurelius reportedly reminded himself, each morning, of the simple fact that he got to wake up at all. Different framework, same instinct. Attention as a form of gratitude, and gratitude as a form of attention.

The practice, if you want it

Doesn’t need to be formal, no journal required, though one doesn’t hurt. Just three things, counted slowly, before the day gets its hooks into you. Not the big three. The small three, the ones easy to miss precisely because they ask so little of you to notice.

Some mornings you’ll struggle to find even one. That’s fine, that’s part of it too. It tells you something about where your attention’s been living lately.

Try it this Saturday morning, before the errands start and the group chats light up. Three small mercies. See what surfaces.