There’s not much to say about gratitude that hasn’t already been said. Major faith traditions put a lot of creativity and structure into helping people feel thankful for what they have. Gratitude puts people in a frame of mind to appreciate that even among the worst kinds of struggles, there are still struggles we don’t have to have.
When I was severely depressed, it was hard to feel grateful. The people around me who are currently deep in the depths of depression also seem to have a hard time with gratitude. I remember a lot of gray clouds over the silver lining – “Yes, it’s great that I have a job to go to, but… I can’t even get my sh!t together to shower, Seriously, every day?” It was such a feature that I’d almost say my own depression was a disorder of perspective.
One simple thought exercise I wish I’d had access to when I was depressed was thinking about bad things that haven’t happened, and aren’t happening. Because they’re happening to somebody, somewhere. It can start with a body scan. The foot pain I don’t have. The torn ACL I don’t have. The cancer I don’t have. And on and on. It can include your house, your block – your roof that isn’t leaking. Your fridge with food in it. Stop signs on the corner that people actually obey most of the time. You get the idea. There are people living in cities being bombed from above. There are mothers losing their children to malnutrition. We’re doing fine here.
Sam Harris has a great piece about gratitude. He mentions that unless you are living the worst possible kind of life, there are things you can find to feel thankful for. When meditation is going well, I can find that even a single breath feels like a gift, and am overwhelmed with gratitude. Everything beyond that – my living loved ones, my job, my safe home, my stably governed country that has survived Donald Trump, the ability to get a Starbucks Cinnamon Dolce latte again – all seems like gravy. And not that weird thin brown gravy from a packet. Thick white gravy with chunks of fennel-flecked sausage in it.
I heard something beautiful in a support group that blew me away – “I don’t have anything exceptional; I have exceptional feelings about the things I have.” (thanks, Monica) Score one for support groups. Certainly this is an outlook that can benefit people of modest blessings. For a person like me, who has experienced mountains of good fortune for decades, it is the worst kind of parsimony to look at this embarrassment of riches and feel anything other than overwhelming appreciation.