The Problem with Gratitude

We all have met the gratitude enforcement officers: the ones who respond to any complaint, however small, with a citation in the form of a tight little smile and the words, “But at least …” Gratitude enforcement officers insist you admit what you’ve got going for you; to pay your debt to society you must be thankful, proving that you are—or at least can convincingly act—grateful for the good things in your life.

I join the force more often than I’d like. I have arrived with sirens wooping, book of tickets in my hand; I have peered into lowered windows, saying, from behind a smile of mirrored glass, “But at least you can be grateful that … ” 

Virtually no one (except a therapist) is obligated to listen to anyone else gripe. But why is gratitude our go-to method for shuffling along a troubled soul? If I’d rather not listen to someone complain, why not say, “That’s too bad. I hope the situation improves,” and change the subject?

I wonder how often we are motivated by our own perceived lack of gratitude. That seems like a lot to lay on my readers, though, so I’ll just say this: I am sure this has motivated me. I am sure that behind almost every one of my suggestions that someone else be grateful is the knowledge—or at least the fear—that I am the ungrateful one.

I am writing exclusively about a non-personal gratitude: not that which we feel for the kindness of a friend or stranger, which I think most of us have little trouble feeling and expressing, but a base-level gratitude for the very conditions of our lives, for events outside of our control, for our “blessings.” Most Christians would say that they are grateful to God for these things. I find it interesting, though, that many of those who profess no faith at all seem to have a certain faith in gratitude. In either case, the thinking seems to go like this: if we pay homage to gratitude in the form of giving thanks, either explicitly to God or not—and the more public, the more gushing, the better—perhaps we will earn ourselves even more of what we like. At least (one hopes, or if not hopes is told) gratitude will serve as protection from undue suffering. Gratitude, after all, can lift any dispirited spirit. So say the studies, or so say the people who talk about what the studies say.

I started this essay well over a month ago. I’d assumed that during a three-week trip to New England I would have time to finish it, but no dice: every single day of the trip, one or more people in the house either had Covid or a case of the pukes, and as a result the childcare plans we’d made evaporated. (At least I have kind and supportive parents, who offered what help they could. At least none of us ended up with a serious illness. At least I had the means to make the trip.) I’ve never been so sleep-deprived, so exhausted, for so many days on end: caring for two sick kids while I was sick—not to mention only six weeks postpartum—and my spouse was away left me numb, quick-tempered, and weepy in turn. (At least we had a safe environment to be in, with healthy food in the pantry and soft sheets on the beds.) At times parenting itself felt like little more than an exercise in—not so much my own failure, but rather the built-in impossibility of anything that resembled success. All I wanted was a scrap of time to myself, the chance to string a few words together—or at the very least a private, uninterrupted nap. (But at least I have the children I longed for!)

Suffice it to say, in other words, that though I knew what I could be grateful for, I didn’t feel very grateful at all. I named the good things as best I could, in conversation and in my head, but I was mostly trying to show myself, and anyone around me, that I wasn’t what I feared I was, which was an ungrateful mope.

One of the worship songs I recall singing most often in church starts with the line “Give thanks with a grateful heart.” I’m sure some readers could sing the rest of it on the spot. It seems to still be popular, as evidenced by all the versions posted to YouTube, many of which have been produced to feature that glistening sound so common in Christian worship music. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, the exact same sound is often used in children’s fantasy movies to indicate the arrival of a fairy or some other act of magic.) Given the subject of this essay, the song kept creeping into my head as I wrote. I did not feel very thankful for this.

Worship songs tend to quote directly from the Bible, and “Give Thanks” is no exception: a later line, “And now let the weak say I am strong,” pulls straight from Joel 3:10. “Give thanks with a grateful heart,” though, is not in the Bible. Moreover, I can’t find, in any English translation, the phrase “grateful heart.” There are many references to “giving thanks,” but I think that’s different. Giving thanks is an act we can do whether or not our heart is in it; being grateful is different, a state I think we can invite but never achieve on the spot.

A man named Henry Smith wrote “Give Thanks” in 1978. The internet tells me that, when he wrote it, Smith couldn’t find work and was losing his sight. Someone who heard him play it in church took the song abroad, where it became an international worship hit. It was almost ten years, though, before Smith saw any formal recognition for his work. 

I wonder what that earliest version of “Give Thanks” sounded like. I imagine Smith with just a guitar, or maybe at a small upright piano; I imagine that late-service restlessness, kids squirming in the pews. No sparkly sounds here, no slick production or soaring vocals. Just a man humbled by a difficult time, singing what he felt to be fiercely true.

Of course, this imagined version suits my taste. Maybe Smith belted out the song. Maybe he brought his own chimes or played a synthesizer (though I doubt he could afford one). But in any case, I think his song does speak to a truly grateful heart. 

And given his circumstances, I doubt he became so grateful by telling himself, “At least … ”

“At least” indicates little more than our own fear and scarcity thinking. At least if disaster strikes, we can count on this comfort or that safety net. At least this or that structure (financial, social, vocational) should remain stable. Of course, for some people these structures are truly more stable than for others. But no one is actually insulated from loss, trouble, disaster. At least (some of us can say) we have our health, right? Right. Until we don’t.

“At least” is the opposite of real gratitude, which is why it will never lead ourselves or anyone else to an experience of gratitude, no matter how hard we try to force it. 

Real gratitude wells up. It is not comparative. It certainly can’t (and shouldn’t) be prescribed, especially to those who are truly struggling. And though perhaps we can invite gratitude through certain “gratitude practices,” it can’t be summoned. Neither does real gratitude necessarily make sense: why do some people insist, with a vehemence equally convincing and discomfiting, that they are more grateful for their struggles than their successes? I doubt anyone can feel that way in every moment; but it’s astonishing, if you think about it, that anyone could feel that way at all. 

Finally I am done, or almost done, writing this post. I sit in a rocking chair, laptop balanced on one arm rest, ten-week-old cradled in my lap. Improbably, a cat has perched himself on my knee, making for a precarious setup indeed. I want another cup of coffee, but the baby just fell asleep and the cat is owed some love after all our time away. My shoulder is cramped, my arm hitched in a way that’s sure to leave me sore. And I am—yes—grateful, thoroughly so, for all this lap contains. This gratitude is not protection or a guarantee against whatever happens next. But that’s all we can ever be truly grateful for: not sturdy predictability but grace along the way, however and whenever we find it.