There are a few things that make me cringe a bit, and scouring my brain for things I should be grateful for is one of them. It brings back thoughts of uncomfortable Thanksgiving dinners, pretending to love the very wrong Christmas presents and feeling guilty for being ungrateful and paying homage to some big bearded dude in the sky for the privilege of existing.
“Attitude of gratitude” was one of those AA expressions, along with “KISS” and other reminders you could call up when your brain opted out of functioning mode.
The word “gratitude” seems to be a reminder that things could be much, much worse. That your pain or distress or hunger or cancer isn’t as bad as the next guy’s so what are you griping about?
On the other hand there is much in life I appreciate — the silky softness of Kitty’s fur, a successful cooking experiment, an unexpected phone call. I love that the HBO show I expected to merely be some frivolous fun turned out to be pretty powerful. Just now I looked out the window as a hawk flew by.
There are too many things every day to pick and choose which one would go into a “gratitude journal”. And that could cut into the time I need to write in my Grouch Journal. By focusing on the stuff I need to trash talk about I can put it in perspective and, like Oscar, give the world a good laugh.
