A friend took me out to dinner last night to celebrate my 24th birthday. Birthday celebrations and birthdays in general have always come with a lot of reflection for me especially as I progress throughout my 20s. As we discussed the usual topics - career, how our other friends and respective families were doing, upcoming travel plans, goals for next year, my friend noted that I was continually stating how lucky I felt - lucky to be working in a job with people I enjoy spending time with, lucky to have friends who enjoy spending time with me, lucky to be able to see the world. This isn’t the first time I’d heard this- I’ve been told by my friends that I’m generally constantly saying how lucky I am (I actually received bracelet of a 4 leaf clover a few years back, the giver’s intention that it would keep me safe in case my luck somehow ran out one day like I always joked it would).
But I do truly believe I am one of the luckiest if not the luckiest person I know - I was born in one of the most liveable cities in the world to two amazing, healthy parents who moved overseas so I could receive better opportunities. So much time, energy and money was invested for me to receive a good education and a childhood filled with love and joy. I have always had an amazing circle of friends who are genuinely the most supportive, funny, and kind people. I’m able bodied and in relatively good health - and where I’m not in good health physically or mentally, I’m able to access quality healthcare. I have access to food, shelter and water, the list goes on.
And I’m not listing this out to brag about how amazing and great my life is. It’s more that when I take a step back and look at a day or week in my life, I don’t feel it’s particularly extraordinary or different to that of those around me. Most days I wake up and get dressed, I commute to work alongside 2.7 million other sydneysiders, I sit at my desk, I work, and then I go home. On weekends I’ll see friends, go to the gym, read, catch up on sleep. This has by and large been my life for the past year, aside from the occasional work trip (where I do the same but in another city). The main difference maybe is that, cheesy as it is, I truly feel so grateful to be able to do all of these seemingly boring things and it kind of makes a difference to the quality of my life. And so I thought maybe it’s worth sharing.
Here’s my non scientific thesis on gratitude.
On number 1 - we limit our capacity to feel gratitude because we often don’t acknowledge or even realise that there is a worse state, let alone just how much worse it is. Humans have evolved to be able to regulate their empathy; the case is especially true for those in high empathy-fatigue industries (e.g., doctors, who may tune down their empathy to avoid burning out from feeling patient pain), and I feel the need to mute our empathy has grown more widespread as our algorithm oscillates between a viral recipe or outfit, and news of the latest natural disaster. But empathy for those less fortunate is a powerful tool and also a choice - while you can’t care about everyone as you will simply burnout, theres no denying that everyone is deserving of care, and I believe we should all be trying to move towards being more empathetic, rather than less. The ability to tune out from what makes us uncomfortable is a privilege that I believe should be selectively engaged with.
On number 2 - being more empathetic allows us to understand how lucky we are to be in the positions we are in, because it enables us to acknowledge the nature of the positions we are not. But it is difficult to feel empathy for that which we cannot see. I’m very fortunate to live in a developed nation where clean water and basic sanitation is maintained; everyone I know has access to food, shelter, basic medical care. If not for the internet or media I might have gone my whole life not seeing what the world can look like if you live in extreme poverty, and I could never begin to describe how it would feel to have to decide between feeding your child and feeding yourself. While I am glad that myself and no one I know can relate to these situations, it also means its very easy to forget that these situations happen everyday, making mild hunger and extra wait time for a meal feel like the biggest deal in the world. And it means we often forget how lucky we are to experience all the little joys of life that a lot of people wish they could experience. According to Easterline and O'Connor (2022), people with higher incomes tend to feel happier when they compare their income to those with less. In contrast, those with lower incomes may feel unhappy when they compare their income to those who are better off. However, as incomes rise across the population, the income of one's comparison group also rises, which cancels out the positive effect of income growth on happiness. I feel that our comparison groups have skewed towards comparing most aspects of life to those that are better off, and neglecting groups where we are the ones better off. I think we far often take for granted how good we have it because we are not reminded how bad things can be. But I don’t know that we need to be constantly reminded in order to feel grateful.
I described this mindset to my friend - that it sounds crazy but I’m almost religious about it. At least once every meal I’ll think to myself how lucky I am to be eating it; if I had a tough day at work I’ll think to myself that at least I’m in a position where I can access employment and financially sustain myself - a lot of women my age in parts of the world still can’t. Every time I walk up the stairs I think how lucky I am that I get to do that. Its comical and definitely too much information but even sometimes when I’ve just gone to the toilet I’ll even think about how lucky I am to be able to do that myself - in a past role I had working with people with disabilities, I cared for someone who joked about how they couldn’t even wipe their own butt without someone helping them, something a lot of us have probably never thought about (at least, I hadn’t thought about it until confronted with the situation). It’s kind of like how you don’t think about breathing until you have a blocked nose, then all you can think about is how good life was back before your nose was blocked. But the second your nose becomes unblocked, you forget that you even had a blocked nose.
My friend laughed and said it sounded like I had created my own happiness generator - “you’re creating happiness for yourself out of thin air.” And she was right. Any given moment, I’m giving myself an extra boost of happiness.
But the thing about gratitude is that I also think its a skill, a muscle that can be built and exercised. We all likely agree that we have a lot to be grateful for, but we don’t reap the rewards of it because we don’t think about it enough. There’s no need to be religious about it the way I am, but I think there is benefit to be realised from actively trying to craft this neural pathway for yourself, especially given how easy it is to go the other way and be constantly unhappy as a result of upwards comparison. In this era of being constantly bombarded with how great everyone else’s life is, its easy to get swept up in how much better everything can seem - you had a good weekend with friends at the beach, but someone else from your high school is on a beach in Portugal. It’s dangerous to build this mindset and even more dangerous to reinforce it.
Yes, things can always be better. But if you live in a developed nation with food security, drinking water, and basic sanitation, you’re better off than at least 70-80% of people in the world. It’s more likely that things can actually be worse.
Some caveats: There are limitations to taking this too far; you can err on toxic positivity if constantly trying to see the good in what is a bad situation. I have definitely fallen into that trap, having confided to my friends about issues I was facing, saying that it was okay because at least it wasn’t worse , only to be met with “Yeah, but you actually probably still shouldn’t be okay with that.” It’s something I’m working on, but I still like to believe that the upper limit of gratitude for a lot of people hasn’t been reached. I also think its a misconception that you can’t be grateful for some aspects of a situation whilst not liking others. We live in a world of nuance, and you can be equally unhappy with something whilst being grateful that its not worse. Gratitude doesn’t have to and shouldn’t signal complacency or acceptance of a bad situation, but it can help with the navigation of it.
One of my favourite short form pieces I read this year was “Thinking in Cliches”, written by MD Denitza Blagev for the Bellevue Literary Review. The piece is a short story about a cardiologist receiving their own diagnosis, but my favourite extract is written below:
“The ancient Greeks wrote their daily records on unfired clay that they could re-use, while etching their permanent accounts into wood. A great fire swept the city and baked the clay, turning the mundane and transient into eternal, while the wood with its noteworthy chronicles fueled the fire. The ordinary details of your days are what have made your life.”
Our life exists in the mundane everyday. It’s easy to find ourselves living in anticipation of the next most exciting thing, the next big trip, and seeing 80% of our lives as a waiting period until we get to experience the next high. Prior to this year, I spent a year abroad, travelling Europe, Asia, and North America. It’s easy to feel those “wow” moments when you’re standing under the northern lights or front row at a music festival - all things I have been so fortunate to have done. But I would argue with this mindset that I actually feel more grateful in my more boring, everyday life now.