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GRATITUDE


I must admit, I struggle with this concept. I have been thinking on it for some time now as the deadline looms for this article. And I am still struggling to be eloquent about gratitude.

I have, like you all no doubt, read the books and heard the affirmations. Attitude of gratitude. Start each day with gratitude. I find it a bit trite to be perfectly honest. Don’t get me wrong, if it works for you, that is grand! However it doesn’t work for me.

You see, I grew up in a rather horrid household, where, if I wasn’t subservient enough for his wishes, then I was selfish. Now selfish is not the opposite of gratitude, but I have heard so many times “you should be grateful you are even here, you selfish… etc”. So the word is negative for me, I freely admit.

I am a coach and a pretty well rounded adult after years away from that environment and the support of good people, so I am trying to determine what else is my issue with this word? After all, it is just a word. Some of it is that I feel it is like any other buzzword – overused and misunderstood. Like “empowerment” and “passion”, some words just get thrown around so much that they lose their meaning or their ability to inspire as much as what they might before we became immune to their power. It is easier to dismiss a word when you have an issue with the word in the first place!

I tried the dictionary to see what the actual meaning of the word is:

“a feeling of being thankful to somebody for doing something” - Encarta (UK)

“a feeling of thankfulness or appreciation, as for gifts or favours” - Dictionary.com

However that wasn’t really any help. It gave me no “light bulb” moment to read what the word meant. If anything, possibly it explains some of my issues. I don’t feel I have been handed any favours in my life. Raised in an alcoholic, abusive environment, diagnosed with a chronic, not-able-to-be-cured disease at 19 years of age; I have worked my posterior off to achieve everything I have and defy the odds of my life. That is not a favour I have been gifted, that is simply hard work, that I have chosen.

I know what I would like the word to mean. I would like it to mean, to me, that I appreciate being alive, the friends I have, the place I live, the experiences I have had throughout my very exciting life. I can make it mean that simply by stating it, but I don’t feel it. Don’t get me wrong, I feel all those things I listed, all the time, but I don’t call it gratitude. I called it being thankful, or being powerful, or simply accepting what is and what isn’t in my life. My friends are my friends because it is a mutual relationship from which we both derive benefit – there are no “favours” involved in their granting me a presence in their life. We work at our friendships like everything else in life.

The word gratitude – it has no resonance for me, the way the word “excitement” does as an example. I don’t get excited by stating I have gratitude for those things. In fact, a little voice says, in the back of my head, very quietly, but what about….. and starts to list all the things I could complain about in my life right now! Thanks but shush now, little voice. I am not interested in my litany of woes. I will just get on with things, the way I always have.

So perhaps that is it. Perhaps I am so used to living with an attitude of gratitude that I don’t recognize it? I’m not sure, but that sounds like a wonderful excuse, doesn’t it, to just simply stay in this place so I don’t have to analyse further?

I wonder if anyone out there can relate to this?

Gratitude fatigue perhaps?

However I am not one to give up or give in, so I have kept gnawing at this one over the last month to try and offer some value to you, the reader, instead of a stream of consciousness about my issues with the word. I feel perhaps, that because some of you might relate, and not be able to have a meaningful relationship with this word, that my story was worth sharing, but where do we go from here?

The simple answer is “I don’t know”. My story may help you if you have been confused about the word like I have. In comparing the aspects of your life, you may be experiencing gratitude that you are not me, right now! It may help to know that someone else out there simply can’t get with the gratitude program.

I don’t feel “less than” as a result of my lack of attraction to the word gratitude. I haven’t been lying awake at night because of it, although when I do lay awake (because sleep and I have a very tumultuous relationship) it has been something I have thought of frequently in recent weeks.

And perhaps, that, ultimately is the answer. That it is about a focus, a questioning, an occasional check in with what we are thankful for. What we experience gratitude in regard to. An awareness that gratitude is important, no matter what word we give it – thanks, appreciation, gratefulness, etc.

Perhaps it is that sense to keep going and deal with life, no matter what is thrown in your path, without wasting time thinking “it isn’t fair”. Because life certainly isn’t . Fair, that is. And maybe, a sense of humour to learn to laugh at all things without getting hung up on what a word does or does not mean.

Perhaps that is my favour – a great and dark sense of humour that sees me through the terrible times and holds off the rotten memories that I choose to put behind me; the sense of anger at my body when it does not work the way everyone else’s does that then pushes me to grasp at the smallest of silver linings that I can find to guide me out of the gloom.

I can be grateful for that.

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