CURMUDGUCATION: Be Grateful

CURMUDGUCATION: Be Grateful

Be Grateful

It's ironic, with a very American sort of irony, that we have a national holiday about thankfulness and gratitude, because we are kind of lousy at that whole thankfulness and gratitude thing.

We're more attracted to the self-made story, the I-pulled-myself-up-by-my-own-bootstraps story, the story that in this country, anyone can get ahead with grit, virtue and hard work (and if you haven't gotten ahead, it must be because you did not display any of these things). We're a little less "there but for the grace of God go I" and a little more "I've got mine, Jack." We don't mind the idea of paying it forward, as long as we get to pick someone deserving to pay it forward to.

The board of directors watch their
first Macy's parade. Balloons!

Our lives exist at some intersection of choice and fortune. We start with the cards that life or fortune or God or random accidents deal to us, and then we make choices from where we are and then the deck is shuffled again. It's an abrogation of responsibility to claim that we are just a leaf on the ocean, and it's a denial of reality to claim that no force is stronger in our lives than the force of our own wills. (And even the force of our will is the result of forces we don't control, but nobody else controls how we respond to that and on and on and on.)

Gratitude is, at root, a recognition that not all human beings start out on the same level playing field with the same resources and choices available to them. Gratitude is about looking at your own life and understanding that you didn't make all that (whether "that" is good or bad). Be proud that you did a good thing. Be grateful that you had the ability and opportunity.

The attitude matters because it colors the rest of our lives. The self-made person gets angry at CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Be Grateful