If you ask me what positive emotion visits me most often, I wouldn’t say joy, because joy often comes in sudden bursts, like confetti thrown in the air — dazzling, but fleeting. I wouldn’t say excitement either, because that one feels more like a guest who knocks loudly, stays for a short while, and then leaves. The emotion I carry with me most, like a steady companion walking quietly beside me, is gratitude.

Gratitude doesn’t always announce itself with fireworks or music. Sometimes it feels like a whisper, a gentle hand on your shoulder reminding you: look again — there’s something here worth holding. It is the kind of emotion that doesn’t erase pain, but softens it. It doesn’t fix everything, but it teaches you how to live with what you have.

As a nurse, gratitude is stitched into the fabric of my days. It’s in the moment I watch a patient take their first step after weeks of immobility. It’s in the trembling hand of someone who cannot speak, but squeezes mine tightly enough to say more than words ever could. It’s in the breath I take at the end of a night shift, exhausted yet alive, thinking: I survived this day, and so did they. Gratitude, in these quiet moments, turns my fatigue into fulfillment.

But gratitude does not just live in the hospital ward. It also sits with me at the dinner table, when I’m eating a simple meal that tastes like home after a long day. It shows up when my phone buzzes with a message from my family back in the Philippines, reminding me that love can travel oceans. It is there when I wake up next to the person who chose me, not in grand declarations, but in the everyday devotion of staying.

The lesson I’ve learned is this: gratitude is not about pretending life is easy. It’s about learning to see differently when it isn’t. It is about noticing that the sun still rises even when your heart feels heavy. It’s about realizing that even in moments of lack, there is still abundance if you look closely — the abundance of breath, of presence, of people who quietly care.

Gratitude has taught me to slow down. To stop rushing past the ordinary moments that, in hindsight, become extraordinary. A shared laugh on an ordinary Tuesday. The comfort of a warm blanket on a cold night. A stranger’s kindness when you least expect it. These are the threads that weave a life that feels whole, even if not perfect.

And maybe this is what makes gratitude the most powerful emotion of all: it transforms perspective. It doesn’t change what you have, but it changes how you hold it. It doesn’t erase struggles, but it allows you to find meaning inside them. Gratitude is what turns scarcity into sufficiency, and sufficiency into abundance.

So, what positive emotion do I feel most often? Gratitude. Because gratitude makes the bitter moments gentler, the good moments brighter, and the ordinary moments sacred. It reminds me that life does not need to be perfect to still be enough.

If you take one thing with you, let it be this: gratitude is not just an emotion — it’s a practice, a lens, a way of living. And when you choose to see through it, you’ll realize that even the life you think is “ordinary” is already extraordinary in its own quiet way.