My neighborhood, maybe yours too, has been overflowing with faux spider webs, crime scene tape and gravestone markers for a few weeks now.

Replicas of human skeletons have been routinely strewn upon lawns and compressors have been humming from behind neat rows of bushes to keep Frankenstein and giant pumpkin blowups inflated.

Besides enjoying the fall colors on the trees, it seems that a new Halloween home display crops up every day. Even during a fifteen-minute walk, there is a lot to look at.

Some scenes feature humor, like the poker game between bodies of bones, loosely gripping cans of locally brewed IPAs. Some pay homage to pop culture. Hasn’t everyone noticed Chucky, the serial killer of slasher movie fame, behind the closest school crossing sign?

My favorite decorated house last year was so popular, passing motorists would pull over and snap pictures.

I don’t know if the scene was inspired by the TV show, The Walking Dead, or if just the thought of zombies taking over a town, house by house, stirred up the idea, but at least a dozen adult figures could be seen positioned at this house climbing up exterior brick walls into attic windows and the side porch.

As I took my morning walk the other day, hardly a minute elapsed between wondering, What are they going to put up this year? and walking past an incredible, hand-made depiction of the Grim Reaper. I quickly realized I was standing in front of the same address.

Covering the whole front of the house, the GR was cloaked in a black, hooded robe. He was unmistakable; white, hollowed out skull with red glowing eyes and extra thin and long phalanges, ready to pluck you by the shoulder and, ready or not, take you to the Other Side.

Oddly enough, rather than prompt me to sleep with a night light on, the sequence of thoughts that flashed through my awareness made me come back to my intentional gratitude practice and my habit of mindful living.

Where did I go to see the best conceived and executed home-made Halloween decorations?  Of course, I decided to look where I found the greatest macabre delight last year.

The logic of this is so simple. If your want get eat fried chicken, you go to Popeye’s or KFC. If you want to meet single men, you go to a sports bar.

Don’t kids practice this every October 31st as they develop their own Trick ‘r Treat strategy for an optimal haul?

They prioritize stops at houses where they gave away the “good stuff” the previous year.  For some, that might be Kit Kat or Butterfinger bars. For many, Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups is the preferred candy for fall gluttony.

If you want to have a certain kind of experience, you go to where this urge was satisfied before.

This is how “intentional gratitude” works, how this kind of practice helps me lift my mood and move through life with greater confidence and positivity.

I consider past experiences where I was filled with gratitude.

I consider the essential qualities of those experiences, in a broad but deep sense. I look for the core reason why experiences featuring this attribute make my day. I maintain a manageable list of these qualities for reference.

I practice seeing how these qualities might be showing up in the world around me in the moment.

I allow myself to feel joy and appreciation for having something I value in my life.

I consider how I empower myself whenever I choose placing my attention on something that, per past experiences, makes me feel good.

Knowing what to look for or where to look for something I care about is no small thing.