GRATITUDE, THE GRIND, AND THE HOLIDAY SEASON

By Chance Copeland

I have no concept of time. This is something I discovered several years ago, by accident, in a conversation with my wife about something I’d thought happened a couple of weeks before. She looked at me like I’d grown a horn on my head, raised an eyebrow, and replied simply, “that was four months ago.” I’d shrugged, and in that moment, my fate was sealed as the person in our family who has no sense of when things happened, when they will happen, or even how long five minutes feels.

I say all of that to say this: the holidays snuck up on me this year, and it was approximately three weeks ago (okay, it could have been five weeks or two months ago) that my wife also reminded me our wish lists for the holidays were “due” to our family on November 1st. Today, several weeks later, I have exactly one thing on my list: a blinking cursor. Because I tend to view nothing as a unique experience, I’m willing to guess that those reading this have something (or several somethings) on their lists as well as we approach the holidays: things to do around the house, things to finish up at work, gifts to buy for loved ones, plans to make for celebrations. For me, the days blur together, are somehow unbelievably short and insanely long all at once, and usually end with a longer list of “to-do’s” than they began with. Then, when we add to these lists the pressures we face at work, in our personal lives, and in awkward dinner-table conversation at family holiday dinners, it comes as no surprise that many of us feel more like Ebenezer Scrooge than Santa Claus. Life is a grind, even when everything goes well. But when it doesn’t go well, that grind can sometimes feel like a nightmare it’s hard to wake up from. So, how do we wake up? How do we honor the hard moments, validate our exhaustion, get our work done, and still show up for the family dinner? The answer is so simple it seems ridiculous: gratitude.

I know, I know. It should be stated that I’m actually what I would refer to as an “optimistic pessimist,” and that I tend to enjoy copious amounts of sarcasm as my personal antidote to stress. So, when I read this, I was (not-so-pleasantly) surprised, but the research is clear: when we are thankful for what we have, we experience lower stress, higher moods, and more adaptive coping to life’s demands (Kerry et al., 2023). In my brain, I immediately started crafting my rebuttal to this evidence, going so far as to look for studies that refuted the claims. But I found none, instead discovering that if I’d used the time to practice gratitude instead of debunking it, I may have felt less irritated and more grateful.

This ultimately led me to another question: so, how do I, a natural-born pessimist, add gratitude to my life in the middle of grad school, raising teenagers, holiday stress, financial overwhelm, and everything else? Here’s some of what I found:

1. Start small, but be specific. Research suggests that thinking about and then writing down 3-5 things we’re grateful for, a couple of times a week, can help with depressive symptoms, quality of sleep, and feelings of well-being (Emmons & McCullough, 2003).
2. Savor the moment. Those of us who are perfectionistic or high-achieving often experience difficulty slowing down and being in the moment. So, take fifteen seconds the next time you see someone you love, smell your favorite food cooking, or hear a song you like and think about what it feels like to push everything else aside in a world where it often feels impossible. This also increases mood and amplifies the intensity of gratitude (Jose, Lim & Bryant, 2012).
3. Tell someone you’re grateful for them. Gratefulness given (Algoe et al., 2016) and gratefulness received have a similar effect: they each strengthen relationships (Algoe, 2012) and reduce the impacts of stress. If telling someone is less your style, even writing it down has been shown to make a difference in how we perceive our world (Seligman et al., 2005).

If I am being fully transparent, I feel silly reading and writing these things, but when I reflected on the simplicity of gratitude as an intervention, I was forced to reconcile with a harsh reality: I seldom tell people I’m grateful for them, and I often question if people are grateful for me, somehow convinced that my altruism is less altruistic if I receive appreciation for it. I’m much more likely to spend fifteen seconds feeling irritated about all of the things I’m not grateful for than I am to savor a particularly delicious cup of coffee. In fixating on the hard things, I’m effectively ignoring the good stuff. But the things we do for others, the things we do for ourselves, and the things we do for the world as a whole all matter. Why not be grateful for them? Why not notice them fully, and express appreciation for the good that comes our way, whether it’s a moment, a person, or a thought that gives us a second of peace? What if this is how we get through the holidays, and it only takes ten seconds?

Unfortunately, my holiday wish list is no closer to being finished than when I started trying to figure out how to be more grateful, but I can tell you that I am newly committed to finding three good things every day and taking ten seconds to appreciate them fully. My challenge for you is the same: surprise yourself or someone else with gratitude. Be intentional, in one moment or several, about finding things that bring you joy or peace. Tell someone you’re grateful for them or practice gratitude for yourself. As a result, you just might find yourself grinding less and loving more.