The Stoics' Better Alternative if You're Tired of Gratitude Journaling
I’ve never liked the whole ‘think positive’ movement, especially gratitude journaling.
I’ve tried gratitude journaling and to be honest, it gave me the ick. There is something about it foreign, almost alien. Most importantly though, it began to seem artificial and contrived.
I can understand the logic and studies show that it can be beneficial for mental health and I do understand it’s important to feel grateful for my wife, my family and friends. Things like my career, the country I was or wasn’t born in, my opportunities in life and so on. But will I look back at my journal 3 years from now and say “Yeh, what a day that was when that nice lady smiled at me in the park?”
Maybe, but probably not.
Sure, if I decide to have kids I can imagine my entry being something like “Today I became a father for the first time. I’m so grateful that the amazing medical team were able to help deliver our child and that my wife and child are both safe.”
But isn’t it a given that you’re grateful for the birth of your first child? Hopefully anyway.
I can imagine that if I read that a week from now or 50 years from now it would make me smile. The problem I found though is that a lot of my entries lack substance.
How does an entry on 18/4/21 that you were grateful for your partner become different from another? And another. Sure, you can elaborate but for me, it lacks depth, but what it mostly lacks is philosophy.
“I’m not a philosopher,” you say.
We are all philosophers. Here’s a definition:
The study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline.
“I’m not an academic,” Try this then:
A theory or attitude that acts as a guiding principle for behaviour.
You might say that demanding respect, dignity and equality in a relationship might be your values. Your principles. Your non-negotiables.
Why not your philosophy?
How about a fair justice system? The right to education?
To me, these are ‘philosophies’ especially when comparing them to the second definition.
An alternative to gratitude journaling
It should be pretty easy to find something you’re grateful for on any given day. After all, if you’re struggling you can always write about something that hasn’t happened to you. Like not getting the shit kicked out of you on the way home from work. But what if you did get the shit kicked out of you on the way home from work? That’s going to make it harder for you to feel grateful that day right?
But what if you look for something to be grateful for when there seems to be nothing to be grateful for?
Convince yourself that everything is wonderful and it’s all a gift from the gods.
- Marcus Aurelius
The example about getting beaten up is a pretty easy example to visualise. We may even wince imagining a mob of people knocking us to the floor as they imprint on our faces their size 9 Nikes. Hard to imagine a positive from that!
So what’s my point?
The Stoics believe in gratitude, but they believe in taking each circumstance for what it is, good or bad. They look to turn almost anything into a philosophical opportunity. When somebody smashed a police baton into the back of my head, knocking me unconscious, that could have defined me as a person. I could have battened down the hatches and never ventured out again, paranoid and scared.
It may not have been obvious then but that moment would give me solace. I got into that situation because I and another of my friends ran back to help our friend. He was on crutches and couldn't run away when 20-25 lads turned up at a party looking for trouble. So, all three of us ended up in a bad way. He was the unfortunate one who had the Nikes imprinted on the side of his head.
I could have run away but I went back to find my friend who wasn’t able to run away and I suffered because of it. Lessons like that helped me 3 years later in Marine training and 5 years later when in Afghanistan. Look for an opportunity to turn the negative around even if you think you can’t see one.
Let’s try some more (less aggressive) examples to hammer home the point.
Your midnight flight, which is already bad enough is delayed 3 hours. It’s hard to think of something to be grateful for right? You’re going to be even more tired and even more annoyed. Well, you could practice patience. That might sound trivial but when you practice patience you only become aware of how important it is when you need it.
You were supposed to deliver an important project by a specific date but didn’t. Your job is on the line and understandably you’re worried. You're meeting with management where you’ll be asked to explain yourself. You're praying that you can find evidence that can get you off the hook except, there is none. This is your fault. This situation will be painful but offers an opportunity to practice integrity. You hold your hands up and say look, I’ve not performed well here and I apologise. You’d be surprised at how disarming owning up to your mistakes can have on a person’s anger or annoyance toward you.
Being beaten up, delayed and poor performance at work aren’t nice things. They’re certainly not things you should be grateful for. Nor is getting cheated on, losing all your money or being ostracised.
I made a great fortune when I suffered that shipwreck.
- Zeno
But something can be good if it makes you good and it is not unfortunate if you can find a way to be fortunate from it.
Zeno’s life and fortune changed dramatically when he lost it all after a shipwreck. He would later wander into a bookstore in Athens and create one of the most powerful and followed philosophies of the last 2 millennia.
You’re free to choose which approach works best for you but remember, the choice is always yours.
Until next time, Karl (The School of Knowledge).
If you enjoyed this article then please consider sharing it.
I read and share about history’s greatest minds, leaders and achievers, distilling their insights into actionable advice for everyday life.
Photo by Marc Coenen: https://www.pexels.com/photo/aerial-view-of-a-ship-wreck-on-body-of-water-3675390/
Before reading this piece, I was thinking about excessive gratitude. I mean following the advice that tells us to try and notice all the things that we should be grateful for. One problem with that is that it will make us acutely aware of how fragile we are, how nothing can be taken for granted. And even recognizing that this is true, that this is reality, the feeling of insecurity may become overwhelming. It amounts to doubting it all: we will not have water running tomorrow, my house may collapse any time, I can be robbed, my physician may make a big mistake while taking care of me, etc. I am not sure we can live this way.
I really like your concept. When keeping a gratitude journal, I sometimes feel a certain discomfort too. Certainly, looking for positive aspects of various events is more creative. I only see an issue with recording these situations in a journal. Often, we experience the (positive) effects of these events with some delay.