Why Gratitude Is So Hard
I don’t like being grateful — most of the time.
Practicing gratitude makes me feel like I am enslaved to someone else — like I am indebted to them for making this day not a particularly horrible day.
Then there is the whole issue of who to be grateful to. God? What if God and I are not on speaking terms at the moment? Do I praise the “Universe” for giving me that glowing business opportunity at the firm?
But wasn’t the “Universe” — and frankly, God too — sitting idle in observance as they watched six million Jews, as well as millions upon millions of unnamed faces get wiped out during the holocaust and the World Wars?
Why would I want to express to them my gratitude for the one thing that is finally going right in my life? What about all the other people who suffer countless daily adversities — some of whom do not survive to tell of them? Do I simply ignore the things that are literally God-awful, right before my eyes?
When I get in this kind of headspace, I have learned to ask myself what I am feeling. Vindictive. Oh boy do I love feeling vindictive. Nothing puts me in the high chair, places the jeweled crown on my head, and hands me the golden scepter quite like vindictiveness does.
Vindictiveness makes me God. When I am God, all of my hatred and rage and pain and discomfort are unleashed in a virtue-signaling orgasm that resembles the scene at Sodom and Gomorrah — only I am the one who casts the fire and brimstone, and God is my bitch.
What Does Vindictiveness Want?
I know what it is like to be a hateful person. I know what it is like to feel nothing but that burning sensation in your chest, where your only thought is of repaying those who brought you suffering and pain.
I will not make the argument that when we are feeling vindictive we simply need to humble ourselves before the powers of the universe — and realize that we do not sit eye to eye with the creator. This is what Job was forced into. There is value in humbling ourselves before that which is greater than us, but humility is not always the answer.
In those moments of hatred, a speech on the importance of humility seldom brings us back to earth. Hatred deafens us to the voice of others.
Vindictiveness appears with the combination of two key ingredients: pain and hatred. We often choose hatred to cover our pain. It makes us feel safe and warm. When someone says something nasty about us at work or school, we feel sad and lonely, and then anger and hatred show up, and we desire to return the pain we feel.
But what would happen if the shield we used to cover our pain was removed? Is vindication actually looking for validation? Do we simply want another to acknowledge our suffering? If a friend tells us how cruel it was what that person at our job did to us, it defuses some of the vindication within us.
The feeling of validation leads to catharsis. It stands to reason that vindictiveness is only internal brokenness that is shielded by hatred. But what brokenness truly seeks is healing.
Some are so bent on their quest for hatred that they will not allow any healing through. But vengeance won’t solve our pain, and it will not mend our brokenness. Vengeance is, at best, a temporary relief of our hatred. Some say it always makes things worse.
The Spectrum Of All Life
There are two spheres that human beings can dwell within. One points up, and the other points down. The second sphere is vindictiveness. It is revenge, resentment, and hatred. It is the grudge that never dies, it is the holding onto past grievances with no intent on ever letting go until a proper punishment is executed. That time may never come.
On the other end of the spectrum is the other sphere: gratitude. Gratitude is both complicated and simple, and I don’t understand it perfectly. What I do understand is that it is a key ingredient to true happiness — the deep joy in your gut when you feel alive. This state is impossible without the practice of gratitude. And gratitude is just that: practice. As is vindictiveness.
The Spectrum = Destiny
Gratitude and vindication are the two possible sets of responses to the same stimuli we all experience: life. When we become more grateful in response to life, the spectrum points upward, and we gain access to a life that is plenty richer (maybe literally) than the other end of the spectrum.
Some have likened gratitude to being like a muscle that needs exercising. If we practice gratitude, we will become a grateful person. We will have more of that burning joy. We will be more ready to face struggle. We may even learn to enjoy the struggle a little more.
Or we can practice vindication. If we practice it enough, we will become damn good at being vindictive.
The Purpose Of Life
The purpose of life is not to be happy in the garden singing by the pink roses in the sunshine.
Life challenges us in fundamental ways. We lose a loved one. Our dreams and responsibilities clash. Our quest for a meaningful life becomes threatened by a arbitrary crash, a drug overdose, a suicide, or a betrayal. It is easy, perhaps necessary, to react to life with vindication from time to time. For a short while.
It is not like there aren’t real reasons to feel vengeful.
Gratitude does not makes us happy little bunnies, and vindication does not have to turn us into tyrants. Most vindictive people are broken, and vindication is the response they many have learned to reclaim a sense of control. But most grateful people are broken too, but they have learned to let go.
There is room for complexity between the two ends of the spectrum. Anger and rage are parts of life. Revenge is a natural desire. Many say that “revenge solves nothing”. I hope this is true, but I am not sure if it is.
Reciprocation is a natural phenomenon within the universe. Karma is not so different from revenge. But a life lived solely for revenge can’t exist but for a bitter end.
How Can We Become Grateful?
Forgiveness.
We shouldn’t just magically ignore all wounds that we carry, or all the horrible things that happen in the world. That would be stupid, not virtuous. But if all we do is hold onto the wrongs done to us, and only pay attention to the latest bombings, murders, or natural disasters, we have already lost.
A few years ago I saw the Conjuring for the first time with some friends. There is one quote that has stuck with me ever since. It goes something like this:
People are not evil because they are wicked. They are evil because they cannot forgive.
While there is an endless supply of things to be vindictive about, there is another life out there for us — if we choose it. Many people don’t want to be joyful because joy involves forgiveness, and forgiveness involves giving up our right for revenge.
How To Forgive
Nobody’s natural tendency is to want to let go. In order to let go we have to practice letting go. We can think of someone who has done us a wrong, or perhaps a wrong that we have heard about in the world or to one of our friends. We feel the desire for vindication move through us. Then we open those parts that want to close in and choke. Then we release that desire.
Maybe we won’t be able to. So then we have to say — I release you from my vindication. And continue saying it, until we believe it. We have to ask: What would it feel like if I was okay with releasing this person from my vindication?
Feel that.
But maybe, as is the case with many people, their inability to forgive others comes from an inability to forgive themself.
I have always had difficulty talking about self love. Maybe you can help me better understand how it works. To me it has always sounded like an excuse to not care about others. But I also know that a fountain can only put out water if water exists within it first. How do we forgive ourselves?
By learning to be grateful for “me”.
Something a therapist told me once:
How does it feel to say “I am worthy of taking up space.”
Not great. Yeah, that’s it, that’s the place I don’t want to go to.
Try saying it.
I am worthy of taking up space . . . I am worthy of taking up space.
Deep Gratitude
The deeper our ability to justify our vindication, the deeper our ability to experience rich gratitude.
If gratitude and vindication exist on the same spectrum, then they are fueled by the same source. Our experiences, our thoughts, relationships, individual careers and journeys, the food we eat, the clothes on our back, our spiritual relationship with God or a higher power, are all part of the source where we pull gratitude or dis-gratitude from.
Real gratitude is not surfacey. It is not a half-assed attempt to sarcastically thank the cook for charcoaled eggs. Gratitude is deep. Perhaps so deep that it is rooted in hell.
I struggle to find the place to be grateful for the bad things that have happened to me. I’m not sure I quite know how to yet. But I know the more I practice gratitude, especially in relation to practicing self-forgiveness and self-gratitude, the bad things in my life begin to slip away with a little more regularity.
Gratitude is not for fools. Deep gratitude is not a foolish way to view the world. The deepest gratitude takes all that sucks in the world, and says: What can we do with this?
Deep gratitude celebrates life.
