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There’s a Better, Simpler Way to Practice Gratitude
It’s not alchemy.
Some people don’t know how good they have it. They think nobody else does, either. They’ll be the first to bring up gratitude. One time, when I was 19, a college friend gave me a short speech about what I should be thankful for. I was trying to tell her about my mom’s schizophrenia.
She cut me off.
“Jessica, what do you want? Do you need your parents to tuck you in every night? Focus on what you have, not what you don’t.”
If you’ve ever been spoken to like this, you know how humiliating it feels. I shut myself right up, and never told anyone about my problems again (not for a good ten years). I dealt with everything on the inside.
The funny thing is, it worked — kind of.
There’s a simple truth behind most of the advice out there on gratitude, although I’m not sure it’s a healthy one. If you complain too much about anything, for any reason, people will avoid you. They’ll think you’re toxic. It won’t matter if you have a good reason, or if you actually need help. Almost nobody wants to help anyone who actually needs it. They want to help people who already have their shit together.
So you have to fake it.
