Some days I think I’m gratitude-impaired.
I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t usually do thankful very well. It isn’t that somewhere deep within me I don’t truly appreciate the abundance in my life, I like to think I do. It’s not that I don’t treasure a family that loves me, a fairly intact body that still responds pretty well after nearly a half-century, or a career doing something meaningful that gives me great joy. It’s just that I’m often so busy being outraged by the failing state of the planet that I get preoccupied—well, with being outraged.
In the course of an ordinary day, I find myself frequently distracted by the fight for what should be, and I forget to be grateful for what already is. It makes me irritable and impatient, it gets in the way of simple joy—and it’s a problem.
You may have noticed this same appreciation deficiency in you lately. It is a common affliction for wannabe heroes in tumultuous times. We ordinary activists are by nature change agents; always looking ahead and pushing hard toward that new thing coming—and troubled by the present thing.
We are adept problem solvers, which means we’re also keenly aware of the problems themselves to begin with.
In the face of so much discouraging news to weed through, we easily default to unrest because resting feels to us like surrender to the bad things—our inaction, like complicity with the malevolent people. In some fundamental way, all compassionate human beings want to create a different reality (which is a good and quite beautiful thing), but as a result, they tend to fail to appreciate reality as it is currently configured. They are prone to exasperation, frustration, to anger—to not being able to look at life in the moment and simply say “Thank you” to it.
We often talk about hope, but first, we need to talk about gratitude because it is the rich soil where the hopeful things can grow. It is a prerequisite for the kind of people we want to be and the kind of work we want to do in the world.
Hope is by its very natural aspirational, it is a propellant forward—toward a time and a place where something is better than it is in this moment, where some of the wrong is made right. It is a view of something just beyond the horizon.
Hope exists perpetually in the future; a soon-to-be, a yet-to-come, a one-day-soon, which means it’s always just a little out of each—which is essential right now.
Gratitude, however, is something we can hold in this moment, it is present-focused—savoring this breath, appreciating this version of life, celebrating this day. Gratitude sits with contentment in today, and it dwells on what is already good here.
This is invaluable because when things get as jacked up as they are right now, the most difficult place to be and to be grateful, is the intersection of Here and Now—and we can’t afford to miss that. We need to find gratitude in the second we’re standing in because it leads us to the next step.
This is true for you and me; gratitude is the fuel for our resistance. Grateful people are the boldest activists and the most selfless advocates because they are fierce lovers of this life.
All movements of justice, equality, and diversity require thankful hearts that see something worth preserving or someone worth defending. As we do the work of changing the world, gratitude is the way we properly appreciate what we already have, even if nothing changed.
Not long ago I met Amie Copeland. She came across my newsfeed in a video talking about Thanksgiving.
This past Thanksgiving, as Aimee Copeland’s family was going around the table sharing one thing they were thankful for, she gave what would be for many, an unusual reply: her right knee. (She’s also talked about HER deep affection for elbows; the way they allow us to bring food to our mouths and perform all sorts of other amazing feats.) Such tiny and seemingly insignificant body parts might not merit a great deal of gratitude or even attention from you, but Aimee doesn’t miss the small things anymore. Every blessing is a big one.
On May 1st, 2012, at the age of 22. after falling from a homemade zip line in Georgia, her body was invaded by necrotizing fasciitis – a flesh-eating, bacterial infection, which shut down her vital organs and eventually claimed both of her hands, right foot, and entire left leg. Aimee recalls the moment in the hospital while still in a thick, drug-induced haze, seeing her father holding up her severely damaged hands in front of her, asking for her consent to have the doctors amputate them in order to keep her alive. For her, and in that moment—the choice was easy: “I knew I wanted to live.” Aimee said, "I wanted to live so badly I would have let them take everything. I would have been happy just being a head in a jar!"
During those first excruciating and potentially hope-killing days, Aimee remembered a quote by holocaust survivor Victor Frankl that helped clarify this pivot point in her journey: Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedom—-to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. In that moment of unthinkable adversity, Aimee chose her own way, and it has been a road paved with a sense of awe, thanksgiving, and connectedness to the world.
Aimee tells me that before her accident, like most people, she often operated from what she calls a “not blank enough” mindset: the feeling that she was not smart enough, not pretty enough, not successful enough.” She was perpetually frustrated. The gratitude came when she began realizing that at any given moment, even with these new monumental challenges and obstacles—she actually always had more than enough. Her sense of abundance now yields a heart that is continually thankful; and not just for the pleasant things. Aimee dispels the rumor that doubts or anger or self-pity never visit, or that she doesn’t have those dark nights of the soul, or those “why me” moments. She does. She simply sees them as reasons to be grateful too. “There is beauty in the raw tenderness of a broken heart,” she says. “The anger and the sadness are part of being human.” She accepts pain and grief as tethered to her appreciation for this life.
*We are uniquely qualified by the pain we have experienced.
This is both elemental and revelatory because our inability to be grateful often comes from our perceived deficits; what we don’t have, what we haven’t achieved, what we can’t do. When you’ve survived doctors giving you a one percent chance to live, and the loss of your appendages—you tend not to do that. You tend to see the victories catalog the achievements and celebrate the milestones. Since her accident, Aimee has made her life’s work about helping other people find the same gratitude in times of struggle. Amid her long physical and emotional personal recovery, she began turning outward. She received her Masters in Social Work and launched the Aimee Copeland Foundation, a community dedicated to “helping people of all abilities to find their purpose.”
Gratitude allows us to be present.
We need to be fully present to truly see people, to be aware of their pressing need, and to be correctly positioned to respond to them. And these three critical things: people, their need, and our response are all so very easy to miss because a million things threaten to distract our attention away. Most of us are perpetually missing the present moment, always being pulled by discontent or worry just slightly into the past or a few steps ahead of wherever we are. Gratitude helps us be present for our lives already in progress. Your spouse or partner needs your availability. your children are growing at blinding speed, your friends are struggling with divorce, and your parents are getting older. They deserve the best of you.
There is a direct tether running between our sense of peace in the present and our ability to be grateful. The former can’t be reached without the latter. We know this because we experience it physically on an almost cellular level. When stress and anxiety come, our breathing gets shallow and labored, our heart rates rise, and we struggle to get enough oxygen to properly fuel us. (And this is just when opening Twitter.) It isn’t until we intentionally slow ourselves that our lungs can expand and contract fully and our breath returns to normal. Maybe that’s a good way to think of gratitude as we engage a world where there is so much to be overwhelmed by, so much that can make us internally turbulent: it is as fundamental as breathing. When we’re able to notice and celebrate the beauty and blessings in the present, a new healthy normalcy comes. Like the inhale and exhale of our lungs, the more we practice gratitude the more it becomes second nature. The more alive we feel.
There is nothing more pressing or urgent or important than being both present for your life currently in progress and having gratitude for it. This will make you more available to people who are suffering—not less. So while, the work of resisting injustice, of protecting diversity, of demanding equality has never been more necessary or urgent—while we spend ourselves on behalf of these things, we need to make sure that we don't miss life happening right in front of us. In days like this, living well isn't just the best revenge, it's also the greatest resistance.
Be grateful today for the sun on your face, the wind through your hair—even the tears in your eyes and the pain in your body.
It is all beautiful, none of it is insignificant, and it all merits gratitude. Give thanks for your knees and elbows.
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