As stated, expressing gratitude to God for both the good and the bad is a tremendously powerful act on the side of good.
Some people see obvious and desirable results from doing this kind of thing, while others don't.
As described in another post, one person who listed 1000 gratitudes in 1 day received a gift of $1000 a couple of days later. (Who knew the rate of exchange at that time was a dollar per gratitude?)
Yet I knew someone else who wrote down 100 gratitudes a day for 40 days (GREAT idea!), and saw nothing from it.
So why is that 4000 gratitudes reaped no obvious reward while 1000 gratitudes did?
The truth is that the reward of the 4000 gratitudes is hidden.
For all we know, a harsh decree was hanging over the neighborhood of the 40-dayer and her 4000 gratitudes completely nullified it.
Yet how will we ever know about that?
These kinds of things are only revealed in the World to Come.
So the 1-dayer got financial payback for her 1000 while the 40-dayer received unseen payback for her 4000. (Not to mention the incredible positive effect on her soul for writing down 100 gratitudes a day for over a month -- very significant!) Perhaps she averted a decree on her community, her family, or herself.
Who knows? Only Hashem.
Just like with the story of Rebbe Akivah's daughter who took care of a poor man at her own wedding by giving him her own portion of food, and then merited to stab a viper with her hairpin -- a viper meant to kill her, yet her compassion and generosity averted this awful decree.
Yet no one knew about this until after she saw the dead viper impaled on the hairpin and then heard the explanation from Rebbe Akiva.
Had she just forgotten about her hairpin or had the hairpin been removed from the wall without dislodging the dead viper, she never would've known about the frightening death she nearly missed.
Weighting the Scales with Gratitude
There are national scales, community scales, personal scales...and our deeds determine which way each scale swings.
And you must know that this is absolutely true.
This means that all your gratitudes, all the items on your list, your 10 little fingers and your 10 stubby toes, everything goes on to these scales to add weight to the side of merit.
It's not arrogance to know that your good deeds have weight in Shamayim.
It's the Truth.
And if you've made a list of gratitude -- whether you did it only once or you're doing it every day -- then I am personally grateful to you.
Why?
Because we all benefit from even your smallest expression of gratitude to Hashem.
And that is just the plain Truth of it.
May we merit to have all our desires fulfilled l'tovah -- in an obviously beneficial manner.
The Story of Rebbe Akiva's Daughter
You Don't Need to be a Tzaddik to Get Your Prayers Answered (Please scroll down to True Story #3 to see the story of $1000 for 1000 gratitudes.)