Complex Gratitude

A reminder that the world isn't black and white

Photo by Luca Micheli on Unsplash

Like many Americans, I’m thinking a lot about gratitude this week. Since I have an exploding inbox of emails to process before family arrives and because most of you are likely in cars or planes or grocery lines, I’ll keep this (relatively) short with some gentle reminders for my readers this week.

Reminders for a Radically Moderate Thanksgiving

You can complain while being profoundly grateful.

You can love people deeply and still find them hard to be around.

Life can be (and often is) beautiful at the same time it hurts (a lot).

It’s ok to hang onto some things and let other things go. It’s also ok not to be entirely sure which is which.

You can be (extremely) privileged and still experience suffering (sometimes a lot).

An experience can make you stronger and still not be worth it.

It’s possible to wonder about what might have been while still loving the life you have now.

It’s ok to take time for yourself and it’s also ok to sacrifice your needs (a little) for those around you.

Sometimes perspective helps and sometimes it’s ok to wallow (a bit).

Gratitude Doesn’t Exist on a Binary

All those things can be true at the same time.

Life isn’t a choice between the binaries of toxic positivity or paralyzing despair. We don’t have to feel or express all-or-nothing gratitude.

Gratitude doesn’t exist on a one dimensional line.

Gratitude lives and emerges from our interactions with a four dimensional landscape. We get to explore, craft, and shape our landscape in some ways, but we don’t own it and we never have total control.

This landscape contains metaphorical open meadows and dense swamps. Sometimes we get stuck. Other times the journey seems easy - maybe even too easy. Life can take us in weird directions we would not have chosen at the outset; we can acknowledge that our current location is not freely chosen but it’s where we are right now.

Sometimes too, life confronts us with unimaginable loss or pain. We lose people we should never have had to lose or we face choices that no one should ever have to make. In those moments of deep loss and pain we can sit down and breathe or we can get up a bushwhack or we can cultivate a little garden. There’s no right answer (though there are a number of wrong ones). What we do with loss and pain depends on who we are and where we’re located and who we have to lean on or who we need to protect.

Life doesn’t exist in black and white. It’s four dimensional, messy, complex, and colorful. Sometimes the trails are really hard and other times we can coast a bit. The people we are today aren’t quite the same people we’ll be tomorrow. The people we rely on are always changing too.

This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for my family, a fulfilling job, and the opportunity to share whatever tiny bits of hard-earned wisdom I have with you all. I’ll also be grappling with some challenging things, some irritating things, and some exhausting things, just like everyone else.

I can hold all this complexity because I’m a human being, not a point on a line. I get to live my life in all its four dimensional, complex, and messy glory.

And for that - as I am every day - I’m deeply grateful.

What about you? What are you grateful for this Thanksgiving? If it’s hard to be grateful, how are you being gentle with yourself and others this week? What complex things are you holding right now? What can you be ok with and what could you let go?

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