How Being Eternally Grateful Can Hurt You
Even gratitude needs limits.
I once had a friend I though I’d be eternally grateful to, someone I could spend two lifetimes trying to please and the debt I felt I owed her would still not be fully paid. Such intense gratitude seems beautiful at first glance, but the truth is that it was agony, and it in part caused the friendship to go under.
We no longer speak, and even though I don’t blame her for not wanting to have anything to do with me anymore, I blame myself for having felt so diminished around her, acting so subservient I’m now ashamed of myself.
True, she was kind to me and helped me a great deal. She recommended me for a job not once, but twice, and both times I was broke and really needed to find something. She helped me with other issues here and there, and the laundry list of things I had to be grateful for began to pile up. It eventually felt like there was nothing I could ever do for her that would be enough to repay what she had done for me.
It felt like she would always be the one offering me help and solutions, while she was so well-rounded, and had her life together so perfectly already, there was absolutely nothing I could ever help her with. I tried though. So hard. Everything she proposed we did, I was in. She was the one person I could never say no to. As far as paying her back, my friendship and company didn’t seem like enough. I had to work hard to prove I appreciated everything she did for me.
Beyond gratitude, I felt like I couldn’t disappoint her. I had to be absolutely perfect. The good side of that feeling was how hard I worked at those jobs, with commitment and nearly spotless work ethic. My determination earned me praise, it earned me a couple of pay raises, but what no one knew was that I wasn’t doing a good job in the name of personal pride, or to further a career I had designed for myself, but to not embarrass the person who had brought my name to the table.
The ugly side of that feeling was the pressure to never mess up with her. Which I did, twice. Because, I’m sorry to say, I’m human.
Making mistakes in itself is never fun. The process of acknowledging you were wrong, understanding how you have hurt/ disappointed someone and apologizing can be quite painful. This whole process does lead to betterment and growth, but there’s nothing pleasant about it. It’s especially unpleasant going through it with someone whom you feel indebted to.
“She’s been good to me, and this is how I repay her?” is not a happy thought to entertain in your head. Even though no one said that out loud, that sentence was implied in the context. It hanged in the air even as I apologized profusely, and she said she forgave me.
She said she forgave me, but I never forgot. And I didn’t forgive myself.
What I didn’t realize at the time is that gratitude requires limits. Doing a good deed to someone you care about does not make you entitled to that person’s good behavior for the rest of your life. Offering kindness out of your own free-will shouldn’t make anyone subservient to you. And that’s how I felt in relation to my friend, subservient.
Ours wasn’t as good a friendship as I thought it was because it wasn’t a friendship of equals. I felt perpetually on the lowest hung of the ladder, while she remained on top, flawless, adored, and feared.
It’s hard to describe the fear I felt of disappointing her, which was caused almost exclusively by my own sense of overwhelming gratitude. It was hard to relax and just be myself around her, and by the time we had our first issue, after I had apologized and being forgiven, relaxing and being myself became especially impossible.
My words and my actions were all measured. I was like a dog that had been beaten within an inch of its life for having peed on the carpet once, all suspicious and shaky at the sight of her master. My agony, however, was created by my people-pleaser mind and my own psychological insecurities. My friend was within her rights to be upset about what I had done. She wasn’t obligated to forgive me. I could have dealt with the process a lot better, and not have filed that forgiveness as yet another thing I had to be forever grateful for.
It could all have been a much more natural, healthy part of a friendship if it wasn’t for this notion I had of being forever grateful to her. We could have also parted ways much sooner if I didn't feel so obligated to retain her friendship in the hopes that I may one day repay her kindness.
The truth is that being friends with her was a demanding job, something I wasn’t fit to keep up with. She always came across as perfect and magnanimous, and I felt I wasn’t allowed to say no to whatever it was she proposed we did together, from just hanging out to working together (read: having me work for her).
In the end, for as much as I tried to not mess up, it happened again. Even though I apologized, it seems she hasn’t forgiven me. We haven’t seen each other or spoken in over a year, and it has taken me a lot of effort to work past the idea that having messed up makes me an ungrateful asshole. It doesn’t. It just makes me human.
Gratitude is amazing, it’s precious and necessary. Gratitude shouldn’t, however, be limitless. It’s important to understand that sometimes you get to return the kindness, and others, all you get to do is say “thank you” and move on with your life.
You can be grateful in your heart without feeling eternally indebted to anyone. You can be grateful for a good deed without letting it turn you into a subservient brownnose.
Losing that friendship taught me many lessons.
It helped me become a more mature woman who’s definitely not going to make those same mistakes again. It also helped me see that, for as much as I may try, I will disappoint some people along the way, and it’s up to me to forgive myself more than it is up to them to forgive me.
It taught me that I can say no to anyone, at anytime, for whatever reason. Someone’s kindness doesn’t buy them lifetime rights to my time and my effort. It doesn’t mean I won’t try to repay kindness with kindness, it just means that I have to be ok with knowing I might not always have a chance. Not everything in live needs to be tit-for-tat. Sometimes you get to pay people back, sometimes a simple “thank you” has to be enough.
I learned that nothing in life lasts forever, not even friendships, so why should gratitude? I expressed my gratitude to my friend by doing my best at the jobs she “got” me, and by coming to help her countless times when she needed me, but I don’t work at those jobs anymore, and how many times would I have to show up for her before it felt like my debt was paid? I might have done that more than enough already, who knows? Who’s to say how much is “enough?”
Lastly, I learned that a good friendship is based on a feeling of equality. When someone is seated at a pedestal, the people on the floor around them cannot be their friends. You either remove that person from the pedestal you’ve put her on, or you raise yourself up to her level if you want to call her your friend.
Gratitude should be a positive feeling, not a contract of servitude. Beautiful things can come out of gratitude, but if you feel like it’s poisoning your mind and your relationships, you have to say a final “thank you” and let it go.
