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Ilona Goanos's avatar

You put your finger on why I am suspect of our culture's glorification of gratitude. It seems fake to me in many instances. I see those home decor signs with the word "Grateful", and the social media hashtags and it appears to be window dressing. I'm a firm believer in selective gratefulness. Some things just suck, including relationships, and we're not always in a mindset to be grateful for them. They teach us things, but... can we sincerely generate gratitude? I don't know. I'm not there.

Here's another one of my triggers: BLESSED. That one really gets me! Thanks for your insight! Very well done as usual.

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Kathy Napoli's avatar

How do you actually know that people are being disingenuous with gratitude? Why presume it’s only “going through the motions”? How do you know that the person being grateful is just uttering platitudes by using the only tools they have at their disposal to express deep genuine gratitude isn’t actual gratitude? Most people I have come across don’t recognize real gratitude as honest gratefulness. Instead their reaction to it is more like what you wrote here. They initially take it as being too good to be true, but the person giving it recognizes the gratitude is being presumed as “fake or just words”, but gives it anyway because they really feel it. How do you know or presume to know what another person is feeling? Sometimes as rare as it may seem there are a few people in the world who say what they mean and mean what they say, knowing what is real and what is fake takes experience and practice at dropping presumptions. Perhaps what we are taught growing up might help in deciphering the experiences we each have that makes us different yet also similar. There are signs of people pleasers and one trait some may have is an expression of overbearing gratitude, many times it’s obvious, other times it’s not. I was taught to be grateful and that respect is earned not given. Also being considerate meant you recognize a person’s value and it’s okay to say it aloud while thinking in their shoes. That’s genuine if all those components are clear: respect, recognition and concern. A lot of times I expressed my own gratitude for different people for different reasons. I am mostly told how kind or sweet I am, it is important to me to clear that presumption. So my response is always I ’m not being kind or sweet just honest. In my experiences, that is even less accepted as real than the gratefulness was. Being grateful for things or lack of them is much simpler. Being grateful for what I have material-wise is what I consider a blessing not gratitude. Gratitude comes when I see what I don’t have because it’s hardship and I’m grateful if I don’t have hardship in other words things can always be worse. Your said, “…,,just our own reflection in the gravy boat?” Suppose it isn’t self reflection but a way to see things outside of oneself and showing gratitude for the existence of others and expressing it openly? Is that disingenuous? I choose to think it’s a gift instead to be able to express how one feels when it comes to being grateful because far too few people are considerate these days so, they go through the motions because it’s less awkward that way. If more people remembered that value these days perhaps genuine gratitude could be seen as it’s offered … genuine thankfulness.

I wish you and yours a Blessed and joyful Thanksgiving. I hope when you look around this year you will feel real gratitude for all of it and are able to genuinely express it. I know I will be doing that not because I need to be kind or a “people pleaser” but because my heart feels it. Thank you Alex for helping me see what others see.

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