No, We Don’t Have to be Grateful for EVERYTHING (or EVERYONE)
I am fully aware that I risk being viewed as unnecessarily contrarian and negative by saying that none of us MUST have gratitude for everything in our life. I am also painfully aware that it’s common for people to practice toxic positivity. I have heard all the rebuttals defending CONSTANT positivity and how it’s ALWAYS on time but there’s a reason the saying “there’s a time and a place for everything” exists.
For instance, when someone passes away, people will typically experience grief, sadness, anger, fear, anxiety, and more emotions that get labeled BAD. Emotions are not good nor bad yet humans assign moral value because how we feel sometimes seems inseparable from how we behave. However, what we feel and what we do about it are and can be two different things. Just because I am angry, it does not mean I have to go and fuck someone up. I can be angry. FULL FUCKING STOP. I can process my anger in a healthy way. I can move on and away from that emotion. It is no different when someone sends me an unexpected gift and I experience happiness and excitement. The difference though is that society has convinced us that sinking and swimming in happiness is ALWAYS a good thing. Meanwhile, we discount the fact that we can use our comfortable emotions to hide from the uncomfortable ones. Just as we should be careful of sinking and swimming in the uncomfortable ones, the same applies to the comfortable.
Too much of anything should be a reason to pause.
This is a push for balance and harmony with our emotions, not ignoring or removing things that aid us in our humanity.
So, back to being grateful… this has been on my mind for some time now. Especially because it’s been said more than I care to hear that I need to be grateful for EVERYTHING that has happened to me… even the obviously bad things. The reasoning associated with this sentiment is that everything that has happened in my life has led me to where I am today… and THAT is why I should have gratitude for bad things… and people who haven’t treated me well.
ThIs is why I used Nikole Hannah-Jones IG picture above.
Please read these next words as if I was sitting right next to or across from you with the biggest of smiles on my face:
I don’t have to do shit but stay Black and die.
For all intents and purpose of this blog, this means that I don’t have to have gratitude for ANY negative things that have happened in my life. I don’t have to be grateful for all the people who have harmed me. I don’t have to be thankful for experiencing abuse of any kind. I don’t owe assholes shit, especially MY gratitude. And guess what? Neither do you.
If we’re being honest, a lot of rhetoric around gratitude/being thankful comes from religious based beliefs. I know growing up, any mention of being grateful tended to be associated with it being a way to show appreciation for all the things God has done for us, especially considering that entity don’t owe us shit. That was the message sent to me in different words but nonetheless, the message remained. People have attempted to put positive spins on terrible occurrences throughout my life as a means to push me to be grateful for harmful things AND people. THIS is where positivity becomes toxic and if that cannot be seen, I have to ask why? No one needs things that have negatively impacted them reframed into digestible bullshit. Reframing doesn’t change the fact that it’s still bullshit and why would we push anyone to ingest something that’s harmful?
However, if we’ve been conditioned to believe that even the worst of things can be a good thing, we’ll eat all the bullshit with a smile. When I chose to move away from religion, I also chose to state outloud that I am NOT grateful for everything that has happened in my life. I am okay with that and I don’t need anyone else to be fine with it. However, I will stop people when they tell me what I need to be grateful for and it’s some bullshit. It’s also part of being kinder to myself. My thankfulness comes from an intentional place of true gratitude.
I am grateful for anyone and everyone who has helped me see better days. I am not grateful for people who have intentionally stolen the light that helps me have better days. I am grateful for those who have taken out the time to listen when I needed a shoulder. I am not grateful for those who have used my shoulders but made no space for my weariness. Sometimes these people have been one and the same. I am still allowed to call a spade a spade… just as everyone else is, even when it comes to me.
I am grateful for the kindness I have experienced. I am not thankful for any unkindness tossed my way. I have the utmost gratitude for all the love shared with me. I will never forget all of the times I was not loved and those actions don’t deserve to take up space with the love I longingly remember. So when people want to reframe gratitude and lump everything into a grateful pot, I wish they would pause and consider what they’re really saying. Because, while some people are busy centering their good intent, they’re dismissing the impact they’re having on others. My gratitude is a decision each and every time I choose to have it so it isn’t something I fling out to anything and everyone.
As I learn how to process how I feel from a healthy place, I know being able to label these feelings correctly is also important. The world we live in is used to ignoring the things that make us uncomfortable but that isn’t something I want to practice. I want to understand WHY I have uncomfortable emotions when life is happening. I want to process them and deal with them in a healthy way but I want that for my comfortable emotions, as well. I don’t want to just feel some type of way, while assigning incorrect value to what I feel and what’s taking place.
And that’s what all of this boils down to… assign things the value they deserve. Some things and people we experience in life do not deserve the same space as things we are fond of and that make us feel comfortable. If other people want to be thankful for the fucked up shit and people in their life, that’s their business. I’m saying it will be no business of mine because I don’t owe fuckery of any kind a positive space in my life.
If you’re still in a reading mood, check out this article on the Psychology Today website, The Overselling of Gratitude by Alfie Kohn. It’s a realistic perspective of how we can see things as they are, not how we wish them to be. At the end of the day, when we do the “be grateful for EVERYTHING” thing, we’re being dismissive of very real things that should not be conflated for the sake of being positive. Life is not 100% positive. We couldn’t make it be that way even if we tried so where’s the harm in acknowledging shit for exactly what it is WHILE being grateful for everything that isn’t shit?
I don’t think that’s asking too much….
