Yeah, Gratitude is Cheezy. Do it Anyway.
It’s so cliche! An essay on gratitude at Thanksgiving time. I mean, really! But oh, well. I can make my peace with that because Thanksgiving is cool. In spite of its history as part of whitewashing (pun intended) of US history, the principle of a day to give thanks is a sound one. And the more we learn about our brains, the sounder it seems.
Research suggests that gratitude or gratefulness has social, physical, and psychological benefits. Living a grateful life can help us be more forgiving, more outgoing, more helpful, generous, and compassionate. When we are thankful, we are more willing to ask for help when we need it, and we feel less lonely and isolated. We are less troubled by our aches and pains, our blood pressure is lower, and our risk of heart attacks decreases. We take better care of ourselves, sleep better and longer, and our immune systems are stronger. We feel better. We experience more positive emotions, and we’re more awake and alive to the world around us. And we are far more resilient to stress.
With all the benefits, it is worth thinking about how we can bring more gratitude into our lives, even when it feels super cheezeball.
One common technique is to journal three to five things you are grateful for every day. This, theoretically, helps you focus on the good things in your life, the elements that are going right. Humans, like all animals, are programmed by evolution to give more weight to the negative. It makes sense to spend more time worrying about hunting up some dinner than ruminating on how fantastic your breakfast was. And, for a social species, it makes sense to worry a lot about your place in the group. Evolution has only an incidental interest keeping us happy. So long as we aren’t too miserable to pass on our genes, natural selection counts it as a win.
The beautiful thing about doing gratitudes each day is that sometimes, you seriously have to stretch for them. Some days it’s hard to come up with even one thing you are grateful for, let alone three or five. This difficulty doesn’t sound like a plus for the exercise, but, sneakily, it is. When you have to work hard to come up with something, that’s when you get down to fundamentals. You start noticing the things you generally take entirely for granted.
I’m grateful for a beautiful world to live in. I’m grateful that I have two cross-species friendships in my life. I’m grateful for my Mom, 81 and going strong, and for my Dad, who still helps me with oil changes and tire rotations. I’m grateful that I discovered cold-brew coffee and have the carafe to make it at home. I’m grateful to be part of a great social media community that is non-toxic. I’m grateful that I got to see a hawk a few weeks ago, pretty close up, and get a picture of it. I’m grateful that my phone has a rather fantastic camera built-in. I’m grateful that I genuinely like to read, and that it is the golden age of television, and that I have lots of great stories in my life. I’m grateful for the view out my window, and to have a car that mostly works, and, on a day like today especially, a furnace. I’m grateful that the Abert’s squirrels, little black ones with tufty ears, have come back in my area. I’m grateful for the washing machine and the water heater for my hot showers and clean dishes. Etcetera.
Once you get going, the list of things to be grateful for goes on and on. And the gratitudes you have to dig deep to come up with are often some of the hidden factors that make life, on the whole, pretty damn good. Taking a little bit of time out to take a deep breath and bring three to five things to mind can reframe your entire day. It’s like doing a magic trick to banish evolution’s pessimistic tendencies from your modus operandi.
So, even though it feels rather Pippi Longstocking (actually, I’ve never read that — something else to look forward to, I’ve heard it’s really rather good), this year, try making a Thanksgiving Resolution. (Why wait until New Year’s and join the long tradition of beating yourself up for not following through on something during the coldest, darkest months of the year. Bleh!) Try the cheezy gratitude thing. Do it on your phone, type it Google Tasks, make a voice memo, do it before bed, do it first thing in the morning. Find something that works for you, and give it a go.
It’s not going to make all your problems disappear. You won’t suddenly find yourself full of energy. A lot of things will still suck. If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, it’ll be cold and dark for quite a while yet. Your car might not start. You might get into a fight with a friend or a family member or have to listen to them spout off insane policial ideas and boring stories (always a higher likelihood at holiday time). Like me, one of your headlights might go out (I guess I’m grateful for the one that works, but that’s pushing it). You’ll still be living in what radical folk singer Utah Phillips called the waning days of Babylon.
But you might feel a little better about it.
And if you feel better about it, you’ll feel better, period. Your physical and mental health will improve; you might find yourself a rewarding social life; you might make positive changes in your life. And you’ll undoubtedly savor things more.
And, hell, if nothing else, you will have a plethora of things to choose from when your family (of blood, of choice, or both) goes around the table, and everyone says what they are thankful for.
