Does gratitude start with giving up?
Hello again. On gratitude and forgiveness. Plus, recommendations.
“You can have gratitude, even if you don’t feel gratitude.”
I think this is true for two reasons:
You can feel or be more than one thing at a time. Bittersweet is a simple example. Whether I'm feeling gratitude or not, I can still have gratitude and feel sad, angry, experiencing grief, or be dejected. We humans are complex and it's entirely possible (even necessary sometimes) to be able to hold space for both gratitude and more challenging emotions at the same time. The only thing I don't think you can hold at the same time as gratitude is apathy.
And afterall, the words we use to describe feelings or emotions are, at times, imprecise. They’re made up after all and different cultures describe and experiences emotions differently (more on this in a future dispatch)
(Of course, we all know the Germans are great at stringing together lots of hard consonant words to describe very complex emotional experiences.)Gratitude doesn’t have to be a feeling—it's also a posture. I love the way that Paul Swanson says it: gratitude is "accepting the giveness of life." Or as Richard Rohr puts it: “Everything belongs." The good and the bad, the rain and the sunshine: it all shapes us and makes us who we are. So, I can have gratitude for hardship, pain, and difficulties—which is different than being glad for them or wanting hard or painful things to happen. Acceptance is a component of gratitude. Or maybe it flows the other way. Or both ways.
Feeling gratitude may be similar to feeling delight, joy, happiness, or appreciation. Having gratitude can also look like slowing down and pausing your reactions so that pain, discomfort, or disappointment don't take over. I don’t think it’s accurate to say having gratitude (versus feeling) gratitude is a cognitive/thinking thing. It’s more mysterious and maybe even mystical than that.
Having gratitude is listening to a voice that says "these things happen," with a bent toward what new possibilities still exist while tending to the hurt, the pain, the sorrow, and holding both light and shadow with open hands. It doesn't give in to injustice, knowing we play an active role in shaping how things are and will be. Having gratitude is choosing a path of active, positive acceptance, which enables us to keep going forward to create what still can be.
Maybe the first step toward having gratitude (much less feeling it) is the practice of forgiveness, based on how Anne Lammot defines it:
Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a better past.
When we can let go of what we wanted to happen, what we thought would happen, what we expected to happen and simply be present to what is…then I suppose we’ve unlocked the door to having gratitude. But we need not get caught in the trap of chasing the feeling of gratitude. Let it come if it does. But don’t betray the mystery by treating it like a formula. Having gratitude frees us from chaining ourselves to bitterness and resentment. Perhaps it will bear the fruit of feeling gratitude some day. But chasing the feeling, any feeling, isn’t really the goal. At least not a healthy one. It’s being free to live in this moment, to see what’s possible from this point forward.
Maybe gratitude begins with giving up. Expectations. Control. Certainty.
These things happen. Come what may. Everything belongs.
Podcasts
Alone Enough // Radiolab — What does it mean to be alone? A fascinating story centering on the sport of bikepacking (that’s not a misspelling of backpacking). “They pack all the supplies they think they’ll need to survive, and have to refuse some of the simplest, subtlest, most intangible boosts that exist in our world.
Nick Offerman // On Being with Krista Tippett — A winsome, funny, thoughtful conversation with the man who brought Ron Swanson to life.
Rick Rubin // Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard — Legendary producer Rick Rubin talks about creativity, discipline, music, and spirituality.
ChatGPT Did NOT Title This Episode // ReThinking with Adam Grant — I found this to be a really helpful exploration of what ChatGPT is and how to start getting more out of it in a really practical sense
To Check Out
The Professor and the Madman (book) — Really fascinating true story surrounding the making of the Oxford English dictionary.
Kitchen Confidential (book) — Anthony Bourdain, what a gem. Took me to long to get around to reading/listening to this. Highly recommend the audiobook.
Choosing to Run (book) — Des is amazing. This book is a fun, inspirational read.
I-We-It. A Framework To Have One Conversation at a Time. “Meet conversational stuckness and tensions at the appropriate level, and put the relationship ahead of the task for clarity and ease in communications.”
A good but long read on AI and capitalism. “Some might say that it’s not the job of A.I. to oppose capitalism. That may be true, but it’s not the job of A.I. to strengthen capitalism, either. Yet that is what it currently does. If we cannot come up with ways for A.I. to reduce the concentration of wealth, then I’d say it’s hard to argue that A.I. is a neutral technology, let alone a beneficial one.”
I don’t even remember how or why I decided to read this. But I did and it was interesting. ”The Fatal Hike That Became a Nazi Propaganda Coup—In 1936, a school group from south London went on a hike in the Black Forest. Despite the heroic rescue attempts of German villagers, five boys died. Over eighty years on, locals are still asking how it happened.”
Parks, the board game. I love National Parks and this has been a fun addition to the family game library.
For the Road
Michael J. Fox was recently interviewed on CBS Sunday Morning, ahead of the release of his new documentary, Still. He has been living with Parkinson’s for more than 30 years now, first diagnosed at the age of 29. This quote from his interview floored me:
I have a certain set of skill that allow me to deal with this stuff….and I realized, with gratitude, optimism is sustainable. If you can find something to be grateful, you can find something to look forward to and you carry on.
Watch the full interview as you have time.