I live in a place where thankfulness isn’t considered fundamental to the happiness recipe. We talk about it alot, but seldom do it.

Why? Gratitude is easily one of the most important mind-postures for anyone seeking to get “more” out of life. According psychotherapeutical professionals, it’s fundamental.

In positive psychology research, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.

For us ‘Mericans, opportunities for thankfulness abound. Even our cars even live in tiny houses. The majority of the rest of the world doesn’t live like we do, with many wondering how they’ll pay the bills, or where their next meal might come from — long walks to water — and they don’t struggle with thanklessness any more than we do.

But if I suffer some great loss, I’ll suddenly see the value of whatever has been stripped away, and miss the days that it was in my possession. This is especially true for relationships, where we take someone for granted, feeling like we don’t really need them, then gutted to the core when they’re gone for whatever reason.

The same spirit would fall upon me if, for example, I was forced to live in a smaller house, like the one Elaine and I lived in when we were first married. We’d have many discussions about “how it used to be” in the house we own now; how nice it was to spread out in the basement for movie nights, or the much-bigger-than-necessary walk in closet, etc. But because it’s currently in our possession, and because we struggle with being thankful, we’re typically “meh” about it.

And so our Thanksgiving will be fairly absent of thankfulness, though we’ll stuff ourselves with a feast that we’d die for if it was out of our grasp.

Maybe Thanksgiving should be a day where we instead eat crackers and ketchup, and go through family albums, marinating in the memories and taking stock of the things that we’ve built together. I’d miss the food, but I’ll wager that there would be much more gratitude in the celebration because gratitude isn’t dependent on things like material posessions, or wealth, or getting everything on our terms.

The more we have, the more we get grumpy and entitled when we don’t get what we want. In parenting parlance, we call this “spoiled,” but that can’t be what us grown ups are struggling with. Spoiled children are angry, entitled assholes when they don’t get what they want, and thankfulness is something they rarely experience.

That’s not us, right?

With regards to being more thankful in the New Year, I’ll spare you all my thoughts on how we might achieve that. Instead, I’ll finish with the idea that it’s good to sit and think about all of the things we should be thankful about, then, with as much brutal honesty as we can muster, think about all of the reasons why we’re not thankful, all of the relational tensions, financial letdowns, material betrayals, carrot-on-a-stick distractions, and whatever other cosmic perpetrations that have given us a million excuses to ignore the good things that have been piled upon us.

For people who believe that God should be involved in this, I’ll leave you with a dangerous prayer:

Dear God, I would like to be more thankful. Take anything from me that might be getting in the way. Amen.

That’s how I pray when I really want something from God. I don’t do it often because I think He’s serious about the “take anything that’s getting in the way” part. Every time I’ve prayed like that I was shortly thereafter confronted with a problem that I didn’t know existed and/or was too afraid to face. I found freedom on the other side, of course, but not without a trip across the Devil’s lawn.

Whatever it is that’s influencing our decision to keep thankfulness locked away in a safe place isn’t good, or weak, or easy to deal with. If we give God permission to stir it up, we’re asking for trouble; good trouble – the kind that leads to freedom – but trouble nonetheless.

Either way, for anyone looking for “more” out of life, letting thankfulness out of its cage is the quickest way forward.

When I was in the eighth grade my parents bought an alto saxophone for me – a Selmer Mark VII – handmade in France, top of the line. It was beautiful, and sounded a hundred times better than my old, beat up, “beginner” horn.

Years later, when I met my wife, I was paranoid about what my paltry financial situation implied, so I started selling things, the saxophone being at the top of the list.

A good friend thought it was a dumb idea.

“Don’t do it,” he pleaded.

The saxophone sold for $1700 sight unseen. I could’ve gotten much more had I spent a bit more time in the selling process.

Granted, that’s not the dumbest decision I’ve ever made, it’s just the only one I feel like sharing. I have a long, painful list of unwise choices that I’ve perpetrated over the years but, since I’ve been married, the list has gotten shorter as my dumb decisions now have to pass through someone else’s filter.

Many don’t survive.

In the painful process of learning to say “no” to these temptresses, I’ve learned their game. For me, there are three elements that are always present in the staging area of a bad decision. As a former pastor, I’ll say that I’ve seen these precede the bad decisions of other folks as well.

Maybe they’re universal.

FOMO

First up is the idea that my quality of life is somehow in jeopardy. If I don’t make this particular decision, the story goes, my life will continue its meaningless, humdrum trajectory. And so I’m convinced that I need this thing/experience/change; without it, there’s no hope of finding the life that I’m looking for.

We call it “FOMO,” or “Fear of missing out,” and it has an odd mixture of hope and fear at its core. We’ve all felt it, and we know that its attending pressure and anxiety don’t lend themselves to good decision making.

We make better decisions when we’re at peace, content with life, much less apt to get suckered into the siren call of “something better.” Note that our culture doesn’t help, steeped in the promise of a life that’s better than the the crappy one we’re currently living.

If FOMO is present in the process, but the potential consequences are on par with buying a bad meal, that’s fine. When the stakes are high, however, FOMO’s a red flag that might be pointing to a bad decision.

God?

Second up is the idea that I’m not interested in what God has to say, convinced that this new trajectory is sound and bountiful. I’ve always found it difficult to consider that I might be wrong about something that I’m passionate about. If I feel so strongly, how can it be anything less than holy?

Us Christians struggle here, frequently deducing that these feelings can only come from a higher power.

Years back, when I was pastoring a small church plant, a friend/congregant told me that God had “called” him to preach, i.e., through some miraculous line of communication, God revealed that he should take the pulpit, regularly. Anyone who didn’t agree would be, in his opinion, standing in God’s way.

From what I could tell, there was no evidence of this, but my friend’s desire for the office was strong within his heart; how could something that strong come from anywhere else but heaven?

It could have easily come from a vain desire for a position of leadership, influence, and honor; something that I’ve felt on too many occasions. In Christendom, that happens more often than any actual calling from God, especially in such a toxically male culture.

Pastors and loved ones have to be careful in helping people discern these feelings. Well-meaning Christians can and frequently do get hurt when their friends suggest that such strong urges might be coming from somewhere else.

I’m not suggesting that God doesn’t speak, or “call.” He does – make no mistake – and He’s interested in speaking into our smallest decisions. Add that He loves us without boundary, condition, or religious affiliation, and we should all be asking for His advice with little to no fear of whether or not He’s interested.

To Him, many times, we are like children who can’t decide whether or not we should get the blue lollipop or the green lollipop, afraid of what happens if we choose wrongly. Like any good parent who just wants to connect, He listens, and shares His mind. Imagine how He responds when much bigger decisions are on the table.

I don’t worry much about whether or not God will listen, or engage, or whether or not He cares. My problem is with the mountain of emotions that get in the way, frequently convincing me that I’m right, in no need of anyone’s guidance, especially God’s.

If I have some aversion to letting Him in on the decision, that’s another red flag.

Friends?

Last are the opinions of friends and family. If God should be part of my decision making process, so should the people that I respect. And since God’s not always clear and/or boring, it often helps to involve smart, reasonable people who care.

But in our culture, people often won’t tell us if they disagree with a future bad decision, even if it’s a big one. Nobody wants to be negative or hurt our feelings, so our friends oftentimes beat around the bush, avoiding a clear “I think that’s a dumb idea” sort of response.

They won’t hesitate to give us a very clear, unmistakable “yes!! if they believe that we’re about to make a good decision. But if it’s a bad one, there are a million unclear ways to say no, and some of those can sound like a “yes,” especially when that’s what we desperately want to hear.

I’m now at a point where, if I don’t get the clear “yes” but instead get a beat-around-the-bush type of answer, I’ll assume that my friend’s aren’t comfortable with decision I’m about to make.

One more red flag.

If all the flags are present – FOMO, God-aversion, and clarity-avoidant friends – it’s safe to assume that I’m on the verge of doing something dumb.

None of this means that I’m going to stop making dumb decisions. I’ll still make them, but these days I try to keep them in the “small consequence,” green lollipop/blue lollipop realm.

For example, I’ve always dreamed of having a huge, army-style tent where my entire family can camp comfortably and still have room for a nice kitchen table and a wood-burning stove.

But a tent like that usually lists for ~ $1,000. That’s “big decision” money, way too out of reach, so I’ve never pursued it. Recently, however, I found one for $250 and talked the seller down to $50. Now I have a ~200lb lump of canvas sitting in my garage, waiting for me to take it into the woods to set it up, if it will survive that.

I once made a similar small-dumb decision with an old fiberglass canoe that I bought for $75.00. It had three large holes in it and the glass was stress-damaged from stem to stern.

Now? You couldn’t sink it if you tried (wait for it).

If you’re counting, there’s 9 people in that boat. Let the reader also note the sweet Rustoleum paint job.

I have every confidence that the tent will find a similar glory. It might also rip to shreds when we try to put it up for the first time, or be destroyed in a stout, springtime wind storm. If that happens, I’ll be out $150 (had to buy poles, rope, stakes, etc.) because small decisions have small consequences and, in my opinion, don’t require a ton of thought, or a complicated process.

I do have a history of making some good decisions, and those have one thing in common: I took my time. That’s the biggest benefit of subjecting our big decisions to a long, complicated process; it forces us to accept the fact that few decisions have to be made on the spot, and subjects our emotions to a test that is sure to get them out of the way.

If the decision doesn’t have to be made on the spot, if it can wait a few days, or months, or years, so be it.

“Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours.” ~ Mark Twain

Should we make policy decisions, create laws, restrict freedoms, tax the economy, etc. based on what a bunch of nerds have to say about something like, say, a global pandemic?

A better question is, does modern science have a track record of leading us astray? Sure, historical science was sketchy with its blood lettings, flat earthiness, and subservience to the Catholic church, but today’s method is much more autonomous from religion, emotion, culture, and all the other things that get in the way of discovery

Today, when a very large group of nerds agree on the same alleged fact, we should stop and take notice. During COVID, for example, epidemiologists from all over the globe prophesied that it would be a killer.

And when the government listened, a bunch of us got mad, until the death count grew to catastrophic proportions. Even then, we turned instead to non-experts who prescribed Ivermectin, et-al., crying “conspiracy” all the way to the feed store.

The other half of America didn’t seem to have much problem with scientific opinion on this particular matter, gladly accepting multiple injections of something we’d never tried before.

As it turns out, one side was right and one side wrong, as is usually the case when a country is so divided.

This isn’t the first time Americans have sharply disagreed on how science should relate to politics. It is however the first time that such a significant divergence in trust fell so sharply along political lines.

During the Trump/COVID administration, Conservative trust in science fell to an all-time low.

But maybe science isn’t the problem. Conservatives tend to get nervous when the government takes such big steps, with many believing that it causes more problems that it solves.

So, when science and government partner up – regardless of how many scientists are saying the same thing – policies that involve wide, sweeping, epic changes will always seem dubious to my Conservative brothers and sisters.

Or maybe it’s the long-standing tension between science and religion, coupled with the fact that so many Conservatives are Christian.

Whatever the reason, I’m sure it’s as complicated as any political phenomena can be, worthy of a deeper understanding.

Regardless of why and how we got here, America now sits in a tricky place where, should another existential threat arise, science won’t have a voice.

Enter Climate change, or better, “anthropogenic global warming.”

Like epidemiologists during COVID, a vast number of climatologists and other experts, globally, believe that the earth is warming due to human causes. If we don’t take drastic steps, bad things are going to happen.

Liberal politicians have taken this and run with it, while Conservatives see little more than another conspiracy brewing, aimed at policies intended to do little more than destroy our economy.

But if the scientists are right, the only way forward is to make the kind of big, epic, sweeping changes that make Conservatives nervous.

If we do that, it will seem like we’re declaring war on Conservative America.

Because so many experts are sounding the climate change alarm, the majority of people in America and beyond are listening. But because, for whatever reason, majority scientific opinion has such little sway in Conservative America, our political divide is going to widen, if you can imagine such a thing.

Note that in the coming political season, there will be no Conservative politicians mentioning anything about a majority of climate experts who believe that we have a problem.

That statistic should be front and center, in my opinion.

If it does get mentioned, it will be to convince anti-science America that there is yet another conspiracy afoot, driving their convictions even deeper.