An Attitude for Gratitude
Back when we were kids, it seems like we had a lot more to be excited about. Summer was always around the corner, you always had someone’s birthday party coming up, and you couldn’t go two weeks without having a sleepover with your best friend. In contrast, as adults, we have 10 meager days of PTO every year (in the U.S.), an annual promotion that’ll inevitably disappoint, and a never-ending cycle of bills, grocery runs, oil changes, and laundry—but surely there’s more to life than that.
Wallowing in the nostalgia of their youth, many adults don’t realize the real reason their childhood years seemed so much happier. Kids don’t look at their lives as quarterly achievements, they’re living in the moment, building excitement over small pleasures, and savoring the simplest delights. Adults get stuck on the enormous societal milestones in life, forgetting to value the smaller universal moments of every weekend, every sunrise, and every darn-good cup of coffee. David Schwartz, a therapist and writer for Psychology Today says, “if it takes a big event to cause you to become excited about something in your life, you're unfortunately missing the chance to appreciate it day in and day out.” Finding meaning in our daily lives is the key to true, childlike happiness, which unlocks a new level of intrinsic fulfillment.
Gratitude is something that many folks ironically take for granted. Powerful enough to sway the most dismal moods, gratefulness is a tool that many forget is lurking in the back of their minds. Whether we’re becoming nearsighted by life’s impending milestones or too busy to consider our good fortune, gratitude brings us back to the moment and into the present to appreciate being alive. Schwartz also mentions the importance of seeking positivity on a daily basis, pointing out that everyone should try to recognize the good moments in their lives as an exercise to boost mental wellbeing.
Unfortunately, there are a number of seemingly fraudulent cases of gratitude, particularly on social media. Soulless, empty, and public affirmation-seeking, online gratitude is devoid of meaningfulness. It morphs into an online gloat session rather than genuine appreciation. There’s a reason many of us have an aversion to gratefulness—it comes off so braggy.
Luckily for modest social media consumers, we live in an era of trolls, both amateur and professional, eager to dismantle online superiority.
Spoof the Truth
Trolls are a critical and cynical group of individuals, often taking the seriousness of trends and turning them into a joke or a sarcastic remark. Recently, in the influencer sphere, daily gratitude videos started going viral where content creators would share a glorious snippet of their luxurious life along with the title, “Almost forgot this was the whole point.”
Via u/brynley.joyner
Online trolls were there in a heartbeat, posting their own versions of daily gratitude, which certainly didn’t include turquoise waters, cliff-diving, or an elephant ride in the jungle.
When you’re a travel influencer island-hopping in the Caribbean, your grateful moments look a lot different than the average Joe-Shmoes back here on the mainland. Pointing out this juxtaposition, trolls have been posting their own mundane versions of this trend, glorifying everyday moments. Sometimes, their day’s highlight was just the spicy queso dip at their local Mexican restaurant.
Via u/haileecatalano
Not every day is a glorious one, but as this counter-cool trend snowballs, it sheds light on what it means to be genuinely grateful. The meaning of life isn’t embedded in our shining achievements, but rather hidden in plain sight through our serendipitous, silly, weird, and happily generic moments. “While recognizing and being grateful for [profound] experiences is important, our gratitude practice must also venture below the surface,” wellness researcher Tiffany Sauber Millacci from Positive Psychology says. “[Here], we find all the simple, everyday pleasures that often go unnoticed.”
A steaming cup of tea on a chilly morning, the magnetism of a good book, a blissful feeling of sunshine on your cheeks, or a stranger’s random kindness may seem menial, but it’s these small happy moments bolster daily positivity. Our lives don’t gain meaning from over-sea sunsets or gold stars from upper management, they’re primarily a collage of our day-to-day experiences.
So, at the end of the day, what is the point?
A Meme-ingful Life
This trend, born from the silly little minds of sarcastic TikTokers, has strangely turned into a wholesome reflection of the meaning of our existence. Lost in the busy whirlwind of life, we often forget to live. While it may seem simple, our day-to-day snapshots are the real highlight reels of our lives, no matter how benign, how small, or how trivial. So if you’re thoroughly enjoying a 20-for-$20 chicken wing deal on “Wing Wednesday” or if you’re dancing on a balcony to street performers playing music, don’t forget to recognize that small, yet significant feel-good moment.
Because like the trolls have aptly pointed out, this is the whole point.
Via u/sigh.sai.sigh