Gratitude vs Awfulizing

A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece on gratitude. All of it was the truth and only part of the truth, so help me, Cat.

Life changed for me in June of 2024. I lost my energy, and my cognitive abilities took a hit. I've been looking for answers since then, and hope is on the horizon, but so far, I exist in the status quo.

A typical day for me is when I wake up, and while lying in my bed, I'm sure that I have all the vim and vigor that I used to. By the time I make it from the bedroom to my office, I'm ready to sit down.

That isn't the actual limit of my ability to be active. I play in a band, and I can load in and load out and play for a couple of hours, albeit I'm sitting down while I play. When I have company coming, I can clean my yard (somewhat), and I usually clean my small house a couple of times a week—bachelor clean, that is.

Sometimes, I review my current state and think, Holy F***, when will this be over? Is it going to be like this forever? WTF? I imagine that isn't an abnormal response. I've seen a passel of doctors and I'm currently working with another one, and like I say, hope is on the horizon. But it can get discouraging.

Now, I'm a big fan of gratitude. It was one of four things that dug me out of clinical depression (well… five, because I don't want to discount medication). I have a way of practicing that is effective and helps me orient myself so that my world can be a joyful place.

Just this morning, I was telling a friend that in spite of my physical limitations, I'm grateful for my body and what it can do because there a plenty of people who would be willing to trade me their challenges for the ability to walk from the bedroom to the office. Also, I'm doing better than I was last summer, so there!

I was thinking that I prefer the state of gratitude to the grumpy, cranky, dispirited, downright awful thoughts I can have. Just now I realized that might not be a universal truth. Here's one to chew on: I'm grateful for being pissed off.

During the last six years, I've used gratitude to escape from being pissed off, but there is a payoff for me in being depressed/angry at my circumstances. For me, that perception of my world is an instrument for change.

It would be great to be a seeker of general health—physical, mental, spiritual, and financial, but my actual real-world experience is different. This will be revealing—I would rather see a chiropractor than practice yoga. Well, that's embarrassing. I would hope that I could change that behavior, but I'll be sixty-eight in a few weeks, and that groove may be too well worn.

Last November, I was part of the half of the country that voted for a progressive liberal government. The results didn't fall my way. The first two weeks of the new administration were met largely by being bowled over by how overt and awful it was for those of my ilk. But we're coming into week four now, and phones are ringing off the hook in Washington, protests are happening nationwide, and boycotts have been planned.

On June 22, 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio caught fire. That was awful enough to be horrible, and it was a turning point in getting legislation to enforce clean water, as in the Clean Water Act. Multiple rivers went from being very real health hazards to water that could support recreation and the return of species.

Right now, those protections are being rolled back. Hopefully, there are enough people who remember the filthy rivers and harbors, the acid rain, and the pollution so thick that you couldn't see the San Gabriel Mountains from downtown L.A. that just the thought of that happening again will spur action.

As I sit here this afternoon, I will still practice gratitude and actively seek that state, and I will also recognize that my feeling awful can be just the stepping stone I need to make an important change. Late in the game, I'm releasing my goal of perfection. Twenty years ago, someone pointed out something that just now seems to be sinking in: "With all the effort you've put into wanting to be, if you were going to become perfect, it would have happened by now.” Silly rabbit.

What I'm discovering this morning is that gratitude and awfulizing don't have to exist in an adversarial relationship. They can exist simultaneously, all to my benefit. Just like peanut butter and jelly, and flying in the face of my culture's wisdom, pineapple and pizza.