Thankful. Grateful. Blessed.

It was 2010. MySpace was all but shuttered. There was a new social media addiction in town, something called Facebook. Once a place for lewd, online collegiate judging of the appearance of others (seriously, how vile), like the ultimate hot or not expose, Facebook was suddenly THE place for informing the masses what you planned on eating for lunch, why you disliked your job, and what makes you tick, according to a 52 point questionnaire where you were cajoled into revealing titillating info like your favorite lunchmeat and the names of the people you thought would be first to post their riveting answers to life. And, then, it happened. The clock struck midnight on 10/31 one year and we were all catapulted from quizzes who assigned you your official chosen Sanderson sister, based on your favorite style of architecture and whether or not you preferred apple cider over hot chocolate, to a barrage of daily mountaintop shout outs to, GULP, what you are grateful for, anyway. And, in typical social media style, if you don’t post about it, you clearly don’t really care about anything worthwhile, do you? This led to parttime jobs for all of us, dare we be viewed as ungrateful for the entire month of November, the thankiest holiday there ever was. “Today I’m thankful for my kids.” Really Sue? Were you actually contemplating posting something about your ability to take them or leave them? Worse were those folks who just couldn’t remember to post daily. “Have y’all noticed that Margaret only posted one time last week?” Never fear, Margaret will soon have 2 glasses of Merlot on a Friday night and give us the novel post on daily gratitude items that will take longer to read than Tolstoy. The hamster wheel of proving gratefulness was greased by the oil of peer pressure and the fluid of self-doubt. What am I saying, that manufacturing false gratitude for the purpose of “earning” a most grateful badge on social media isn’t really the purpose of practicing a habit of gratitude? Bingo.

The last 2 years have been difficult. Regardless of where you stand on life in the age of Covid, there are facts we can all agree on. People have died. People have gotten really sick and recovered well. People have gotten really sick and have not recovered well. It has affected every aspect of our lives from relationships to the economy. It has been intolerably stressful at times. Admittedly, we have all wondered in these past years, what is there to be grateful for? Everything is bordered in a tightrope matrix of barbed wire. You are either in agreement with something or you are in polarizing disagreement. So, we push each other with our words, back and forth over these lines, the barbs cutting both ways. We feel we know exactly who is to blame. Them. This is their fault. It’s all because of their beliefs. Yet, the microcosm of humanity exists, it seems, only in averages. My ideologies are lumped in with the ideologies of the evil “they” to form a watered-down gray mush of feelings soup that gets spoon-fed back to the world in the form of the evening news. Why can’t we see that we’re all a bit right and all a bit wrong? I’m not sure. This is not an environment conducive to gratitude. We should probably just shelve Thanksgiving all together, right? According to Psychology Today, that’s not a great idea. We just need a gratitude adjustment.

Amie Gordon is a social psychologist at the University of Michigan who focuses on interpersonal relationships and overall well-being. At least, that what’s she was doing when she wrote this article that upends all the social media thankfulness gurus. There’s a wrong way to be grateful. Dr. Gordon warns us that Barry White was right all along. Too much of anything really isn’t good for us, baby. That includes gratitude. A recent (to her article) study even showed that, on the topic of gratitude tracking, people who made a daily practice of charting their every waking gratuitous moment were less happy than those who made weekly pronouncements. This especially held true when folks said they ran out of gratitude announcements and struggled to pick something. Gratitude can’t be forced. She also warns us away from toxic positivity. Turns out, using grandiose relationship gratitude soliloquies to cover issues we don’t want to address is akin to repeatedly painting over that spot of mildew on the wall. It’ll fix things for a moment, but the mildew will never stay hidden for long. A better option would be to address the issues straight on. Gratitude is not a band aid. Dr. Gordon also wants to warn us about the perils of self-deprecation in regard to being grateful. It’s nice to downplay our success and build up another person, especially when they are deserving of recognition. If you do that solely, however, you may find that you’re under-appreciating your own efforts. You can elevate another person and still acknowledge your own hard work. Gratitude is not jealous. Finally, don’t confuse the emotion of being grateful for someone with the emotion of being indebted. Returning favors is a noble quest but can easily lead to a contest in gratitude. If we engage in deeds of gratuity only for the purpose of winning the shiny “Most Thankful 2021” trophy, is that really gratitude at all? Gratitude does not compete.

Thanksgiving is upon us. For some of us, it’s still a wary time. For others of us, it’s business as usual in the familial gatherings department. No matter where you are spending the holidays this year, be sure and set a plate for two extra guests. Go ahead and invite Gratitude to the party. She isn’t that good of a cook, but her Aunt Bethany cat food jello mold (flimsily cloaked Christmas Vacation reference) is necessary for us to appreciate everything we have been given, aka salt and pepper the crow if you must eat it. And, by all means, invite Gratitude’s cousin, Grace. She stinks at cleaning up the kitchen, but she won’t tell a sole you used that butter you dropped in the floor. You are worthy of cutting yourself some slack, this year and every year. I’m grateful for all of you.