When gratitude is a bludgeon

A thinker I respect sent a newsletter Monday with the subject: "Shut up and be grateful."

It drove the nail home for me: why am I frequently reluctant to trust this person's advice? I've always suspected that - despite it's wit, insight, and clear-thinking - the reason I don't jump in and embrace this person's way of viewing the world is because it's devoid of love. This email, at the very least, was.

I've been having a conversation with members of the Happy at Work community about gratitude.

A common trope:

"I worked so hard to get this job. So many people would give their left arm to have it. I should just be grateful, right?"

The unstated part: but I am miserable, my values aren't respected here, and I feel my potential withering with each passing day.

It's the most insidious form of coercion, this. Because we all want to be grateful. We all want to be a "good boy or girl." I gendered that because it's about the youth of this sentiment. We picked this up in elementary school when we were just trying to be a good boy or girl so we wouldn't get singled out, banished, pariahed. We want to belong.

That's what drives this flavor of gratitude - a need to cohere to the herd.

But when you vibe check everything I've written so far, you can see, there isn't a trace of joy or light in any of these sentiments.

If it's REALLY gratitude, it should shine with delight and uplift.

If gratitude is juxtaposed with shutting up (either in someone else's words or in your own mind), it's a bludgeon. It's a way of manipulating you (or you manipulating yourself) into tolerating something that doesn't actually work for you.

Unfortunately, a lot of what we mean when we talk about gratitude is this type - the bludgeon keeping you in line with what is expected of you, even when that causes your unhappinesses to blossom instead of your gifts.

I got rid of the word gratitude in my own vocabulary a while back for this reason. I noticed that it started to curdle in my stomach when I tried to marshal the idea of what I was grateful for. It didn't fly out of my chest like a Perseid, it rankled in my gut like homework. It kept me focused on the oppressive shoulds in my life instead of the possibilities.

I shifted to appreciation instead, a suggestion of a different thinker I greatly admire and respect.

Appreciation belongs to you, not to the demands of the flock.

It just emerges purely from the heart and expands (not by coincidence, appreciation also means... expand).

So if you're telling yourself you should be grateful for something, maybe drop that idea.

And instead look for something you genuinely appreciate with your heart.

Like this beautiful sunny day we finally have.

Like the smell of that first coffee in the morning.

Like the faces of those beautiful teammates on the zoom.

Like the fact that we have so much wisdom and laughter to share with each other.

Or whatever is close at hand that makes you smile.

Then the actions you need to take to expand yourself will make themselves known, and you will take them with aplomb. No bludgeoning required.

Bring your love to what you do.

It's the most loving thing you can do for yourself.

And you deserve so much love.