On New Year’s Day, ninety percent of the U.S. experienced freezing or below-freezing temperatures. As someone who absolutely hates the cold, this was, quite frankly, an icicle to the heart. Anything below sixty degrees Fahrenheit counts as freezing to me, and even anything below seventy is still uncomfortably chilly.

This simple news about the temperature sent my thoughts into a negative spiral—I hate winter, these post-holiday months are the worst, I can’t stand being cold. When thinking about what article to write, I considered topics along these lines, perhaps about the post-holiday slump or seasonal depression or how to survive these cold and dreary days. My mind was so preoccupied with latching on to the negatives that it was a while before I realized that instead of agonizing over winter, I could simply be grateful that I lived in the ten percent of the U.S. that didn’t experience freezing temperatures.

Gratitude: what a revolutionary thought.

Maybe I’m pessimistic, preprogrammed to highlight the negatives and overlook the positives. But I’m definitely not alone in doing so. Our brains are wired to solve problems, so whatever isn’t a problem is automatically taken for granted as we ruminate on the difficulties we’re facing, however big or small they may be. When in actuality, the real problem is our collective overlooking of gratitude. In fact, gratitude itself is the solution to many of our problems.

Gratitude not only draws your mind back to the positives in your life, but it also improves your mental and physical health: everything from how well you sleep to your resilience to helping you achieve your goals. At the least, it shines a light of hope even in the darkest times.

I can personally vouch for the power of gratitude. For the past two years, I’ve jotted down one thing I’m grateful each night before I go to sleep. With the goal of never repeating what I’m grateful for, you’d think I’d run out eventually—I sure thought so in the beginning—but I haven’t yet. Sure, my gratitude has been for things as significant as God to as trivial as Netflix to as random as goats, but hey, gratitude is gratitude.

And ironically—or perhaps fortuitously—I’m incredibly grateful that I began this habit. There have been countless days that seemed hopeless and overwhelmingly bleak, days where I couldn’t imagine being grateful for anything at all. And yet, after a minute of thinking, I can come up with at least one thing I’m grateful for, even if it’s just a song I heard on the radio a few days ago. Like any other pursuit, gratitude becomes easier the more you practice it, and I’ve become quite adept at pulling gratitude out of thin air when previously I was only capable of wallowing in cynicism.

Tonight, I’ll be grateful for this California weather. While the rest of the U.S. is canceling school because of the cold, I’ll be wearing shorts. Tomorrow, I’ll be thankful for something else. I don’t know exactly what, but what I do know is that gratitude has changed my life in more ways than one.