“No…tell me how you’re really doing.”
A friend was upset that I’d been giving her the “I’m fine” line when, in fact, she was aware of some challenging circumstances and health issues I’d been going through. And she wasn’t the only one; this conversation repeated itself a couple of times in about as many days. So I decided to change how I answered that most basic of all questions, “How’s it going?” by being more introspective. They’d raise the question and I’d launch an internal diagnostic in order to answer as truthfully and accurately (and succinctly) as I could.
Have you ever thought about how subjective honesty can be? After several weeks of this ritual, I did. (To be honest), honesty is as much about where you’re focusing as it is about the accuracy of whatever specifics you’re sharing. On one particular day, I ran the diagnostic, noted some aches and weariness, and gave the requested update to my friend. Then, just a few hours later, I noticed this: I was actually doing pretty well, once I’d stopped analyzing the details – I was, in fact, enjoying my day.
Truism: put something under a microscope and it will get magnified. Corollary: whatever you don’t put under it may get missed. That’s why I stopped running that daily diagnostic decades ago.
I set out to write about thankfulness in this particular column, so let me show you how the above lesson applies. Thankfulness has very little to do with our outward state. Neither does it revolve around our inward feelings. Yet most of us have gotten in the habit of placing our circumstances, our desires, our health and our feelings under the microscope, day by day, to see if we’re thankful yet. We’re less about counting and more about critiquing our blessings to see if they’re truly thank-worthy.
“Should I pretend to be thankful when my family has problems, my pile of stuff is too small (or old), my job isn’t very profitable or fun (or is nonexistent) and my pleasures aren’t nearly as pleasurable as they ought to be? Isn’t that hypocritical?” We build our case for unthankfulness via such questions, pat ourselves on the back for not being bitter (despite our many disappointments), and “soldier on.” Am I overstating here, or largely accurate?
Our short list for giving thanks has become very short, indeed.
Stop analyzing the minutia of your dissatisfaction, start normalizing the practice of thankfulness, and you’ll experience a similar impact…only to the positive. Thankfulness frames our perceptions and guides how we interpret our circumstances. It recalibrates our minds to perceive goodness and to enjoy the unique life and wherewithall that each of us has been given – even in the lean and frustrating moments. This is why thankful people are happier than dissatisfied people, regardless of their circumstances. It’s why survivors of the Great Depression can model more happiness than people in our day who have had incredible advantages.
Thankfulness is the ability to savor whatever measure of good you may have received in the past, whatever measure you’re currently experiencing, and even the basic providences you anticipate receiving in the future before ever seeing them come about. It’s not a mindless mantra uttered by those blind to their circumstances. It’s the practice of getting the right things under the microscope, letting them fill your vision, realizing who to thank and giving it voice.
