Gratitude Workarounds

Because the wheel’s still spinning

By now we probably all know the terrific Zen tale that teaches us never to assume we know whether events will turn out to be good for us or bad for us.

The story goes like this: A man’s horse runs away — bad news! The horse returns, bringing 12 fresh wild horses with it — good news! The man’s son breaks his leg trying to ride one of the wild horses — bad news! But now he is spared fighting in the war — good news! Because the man is wise, he refrains throughout from declaring whether each event that comes is good or bad news.

Unlike this wise man, most of us want to characterize whatever happens to us as “bad” news or “good” news. But typical lives are made of disjointed episodes whose narratives turn on a dime. George R. R. Martin is not the first author to deliver a plot twist or kill off a main character in the first season. (Adam and Eve didn’t get out of their pilot before the author revised the entire storyboard. I don’t even think they got raises, and for sure they lost their guarantees.)

We’ve all noticed these reversals.

You get in a fender-bender on the way to the airport, and you miss your plane, but that plane disappears into the Bermuda Triangle.

Whew! Dodged a bullet there, didn’t you?

Or you are passed over for the job you were certain you’d get, and you struggle through another month of unemployment, but then the job you really wanted comes through. Total victory.

And in these instances, at least one person you know will nod wisely and say, with a pious half-smile, “You see, my dear — God Had A Plan.”

And you’re supposed to solemnly agree and, more importantly, quit whining. You are not supposed to punch that person in the bicep, which is what I usually want to do.

Those so-called plans of God’s are usually the worst, Rube Goldberg-style plans imaginable. They are inefficient, wasteful, painful, obscure, poorly communicated, and clearly inferior to the plans God has obviously designed for everyone else you know.

Is God really such a poor planner? I’m no expert, but isn’t there project management software for that kind of thing? You know — tools for mapping likely outcomes? Risk management spreadsheets? Tabletop exercises to help team leaders coordinate disaster response scenarios?

I mean no disrespect, but if we truly believe that God micromanages each of our daily lives with these “plans,” then why do we look the other way when God appears to be doing such a sloppy job of it?

We keep thinking we’ve got it all figured out.

Maybe the real problem is that we keep focusing on the outcomes we want, and what we think those outcomes mean, rather than the events as they happen in real time. It’s just how we are with elections, when we simply can’t bear wait to declare a winner, even with only a tiny percentage of votes actually counted.

That’s our fault, not God’s, if we’re being honest. And even when we think we’ve won, and we’re taking our victory lap — we probably shouldn’t. I’ve watched enough scary movies to know that — haven’t you?

That plane we missed, that went down in the Bermuda triangle? For all we know, our seatmate on that plane might have become our soulmate, the love of our life whose absence we will now feel forever as an mysterious emptiness in our hearts.

That job we really wanted and finally got? For all we know, it has entangled us with a company that will be revealed ten years later as a defrauder of the innocent or a poisoner of the earth.

So even when we think we know the outcome and the significance of an action or an event, we really don’t. We can’t. Only our hubris says otherwise. And our hubris told us to spend $100 on lottery tickets, too, so there’s that.

Blessings should be counted in real time

Look, everyone tells us that to be happy we must be grateful, and usually they mean grateful to God. But if we’re waiting to see whether this carnival ride of a life will end up in the funhouse or the outhouse, it will be hard to sincerely thank the operator. That’s true for me, anyhow. If you can thank God without knowing where you are going to end up, then my hat’s off to you, though I suspect you’re not quite human.

But I’ve made some progress in the gratitude area by changing my timing a little. I’m not waiting to see where it all ends up, and I’m not thanking anyone for any outcomes.

Instead, when I think of it, I just casually take a beat to be grateful, right now, for whatever is happening in the moment that doesn’t outright stink. If I am on my best game that day, it becomes part of my interior language.

Ooof! That guy just hit my car! [Censored] idiot [censored]… Well, I’m not hurt, thank God. Looks like he’s not hurt, either. Uh, thanks for that too, I guess. [Censored] idiot.

It doesn’t matter that you later miss your plane. Acknowledging gratitude in the moment for being unharmed is genuine and appropriate. It promotes happiness — not by adding to it, as you would add canned goods to your pantry, but by building it, as you would build strength in your body by doing a bit of exercise or dancing a little dance.

Take your eyes off the prize, already

We have been taught so sternly to focus on outcomes that it’s no wonder we have difficulty noticing the world along the way. It’s too bad, because by the time we get to some artificial endpoint, intermediate points are likely to have canceled each other out. Then we believe nothing remains to give thanks for.

But there were countless moments for which we might have been grateful, if we had not disdained them for failing to reveal some ultimate cosmic significance to us under our neurotic scrutiny.

The best gratitude happens in real time

Moments for gratitude now feel to me like time-limited material. If you will forgive a naive technological reference, perhaps they are like those two-factor authorization codes we get in texts or emails whenever we participate in anything online.

In our real lives, we experience a moment in time as a positive blessing. Perhaps a falling piano narrowly misses us. Perhaps we accidentally meet up with an old friend. Perhaps we find an extra five dollars that we can then give to someone who needs it.

And then the universe sends a confirmation code:

“To confirm receipt of this blessing, click this link.”

The link is your gratitude.

We shouldn’t wait to use it, because it is only temporary.

It expires as soon as the next thing happens, and you don’t know what in the world that will be. A broken leg. A broken heart. A broken peace.

Don’t wait, because the wheels will turn and the gears will shift and the outcomes will change forever. The next moment could turn thoroughly wretched, and you’ll feel at least a little foolish if you’re trying to thank the Academy for not giving you the award, again.

But if this moment does fill you with delight, then confirm that link.

Prove you are who you say you are.

Prove you are who you aspire to be.

Prove you know that when you receive the singular blessing of twelve wild horses, the very best response is a wild, grateful heart.

No matter what comes next.