Thankskeeping

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.