I am not grateful for anything.

There. I said it.

If you’re grateful for things and that works for you, YAY! Just don’t
tell me about it like you know the secret to the Universe and I’m a
complete idiot for not “getting it.”

I see the word “gratitude” all over the place lately. It’s one of the
big buzzwords out there right now. Gratitude makes everyone instantly
happy, saves puppies and whales and cures cancer. Oh BOY! Let’s be
grateful for everything. Even the cancer. Before it’s
obliterated. Then let’s be grateful for that.

I hate that fucking word. It grates on my nerves and turns my
stomach. And yeah, I get it. Well, I got it. Now I’m over it.

Okay, yes. The word itself is probably fine. The feeling people get
when they say it and feel it might also be perfectly fine. Good for
them. What I don’t like are the desperate, clingy feelings I
associate with it. And the self-righteous way some people say it –
like they are so wonderful and perfect and guaranteed a life of
unicorn kisses and rainbow farts because they are grateful for
it all.

Most of the time, when people talk about gratitude, they seem to be
coming from a place of desperation and lack. They sound like a person
who had been lost in the desert when given a drink of warm canteen
water. That person is so grateful for the water. Because
without it he’d be dead. For real. Dead. Vulture buffet FTW.

The gratitude comes from the lack. Talk to a happy, healthy,
well-hydrated guy at a fancy party. Offer him warm canteen water when
there are 20 different types of beer, 14 varieties of wine, sweet tea,
unsweetened tea, green tea, white tea, 45 colas, and a damn fine
mojito right there. Unless he’s a self-righteous dick, trying to make
a point, he probably won’t be interested in the water. And it’s
doubtful that he’ll be grateful for it.

Not too long ago I was grateful for my cat’s health. He’d spent
several days in the vet hospital, in a tiny cage, hooked up to IVs.
After a relapse or two, he eventually made a splendid recovery. I was
grateful for it.

And I was miserable and stressed out about it.

The gratitude came from his previous lack of health, not from the joy of his current state. It confused me. I mean, isn’t gratitude the best, most optimal state?

After doing a lot of outside research and poking around in my brain, I
came to the realization that gratitude is NOT for me.

Not too long ago, I hated my job. Then I got fired and I still hate
it. Yes, there were a couple of great things about it. Mostly, I
felt sick about it. People told me to be grateful for it. People
told me I “should be happy that I had a job.” I wasn’t.

Great. Now, not only was gratitude tied to lack and desperation, but
it had become an obligation. I could, and might, write an entire post
about how much I dislike obligations. For now, just know that I am
not a fan of obligations, or of most things that anyone tries to force
upon me.

Well, what the fuck? Had I become an ungrateful jerk?

Yeah, maybe.

What I learned was that my magical buzzword is appreciation.

Semantics. Lexical semantics.

Something like that.

Mostly, I realized how much I like the feeling of appreciation.
Appreciation puts little butterfly wings on my heart and causes me to
grin like an idiot. Appreciation is me taking a moment to acknowledge
something I like. Appreciation is not about lack. Appreciation is
not something I am ever obligated to feel. Appreciation feels
genuine, honest, and free.

Appreciation is personal. Appreciation is Mine.

If I’m walking along and I see a lovely little flower, I appreciate
it. I appreciate its existence, and that I was able to witness it.

When I look at my healthy little cat, sleeping in a chair a few feet
from me, I appreciate his good health. I can usually do this now
without a remnant of fear or sadness or memory of a time when I was
afraid I was going to lose him.

While there might be a specific reason or a long story behind why
something is appreciated, there doesn’t need to be. Maybe I just
really enjoy the feeling of lightly pressing a small bit of plastic
and having an entire room change from dark to light. It doesn’t
matter if I ever lived without electricity.

Appreciation is about right now. What matters is right now. I can’t
go back in time and change anything. I can’t predict, with 100%
accuracy, what will happen in the future. What I can do, I can only
do right now. The less I concern myself about any of that other shit,
the better. The less I think about what I have that I once lacked, or
what I have now that I could lose tomorrow, the happier I am. And the
happier I am, the more my life is filled with unicorn kisses and
rainbow farts, which makes everyone around me happier.

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