This Is What (Stoic) Gratitude Actually Looks Like
Gratitude is one of those things that’s simple…but not easy.
Today is Thanksgiving in America. It’s a day that we’re supposed to center around gratitude. The usual candidates come to mind: family, health, and the food in front of us. And rightly so. These are the cornerstones of a fortunate life, and they deserve recognition and appreciation.
But what about all the other stuff? The obstacles. The frustrations. The wrong turns. The difficult people. The bad days.
Should we be grateful for those too?
Yes—those especially.
Especially because they are hard to be grateful for.
Epictetus was born into slavery and he spent the next thirty years in that institution. He wasn’t even given a name–Epictetus just means acquired one. He was tortured. And when he finally found freedom, he was almost immediately exiled by a tyrannical emperor.
You know in Les Mis where she sings about how the dream she dreamed was so much different than the hell she was living? That was basically Epictetus’ real-life story. Yet what he came away with was not bitterness, but gratitude. The key to life, he said, was not to dream for things to be a certain way, but to dream for them to be the way they were. To be grateful that you had the fate you had. “Convince yourself that everything is the gift of the gods,” was how Marcus Aurelius put it, “that things are good and always will be.”
In the mornings when I sit down to journal, one of the notebooks I write in is a gratitude journal. When I first got it, I would fill the pages with the lineup I mentioned above–my family, my health, my career, the people and things and opportunities in my life that mean a lot to me. But after a time, this came to feel sort of pointless and rather repetitive. I needed a new approach.
What I began to do was try to find ways to express gratitude, not for the things that are easy to be grateful for, but for what is hard. I wanted to practice seeing everything as a gift from the gods, as Marcus Aurelius wrote. Because while it’s easy to count my blessings of the good things in life, it’s much more difficult to see the bad things as gifts, too. But with this practice, I’ve learned to see they can be.
That troublesome client—thank you, it’s helping me develop better boundaries.
That traffic jam—thank you, it gave me time to call my wife and have a nice, meandering conversation.
That rejection email—thank you, it forced me to reevaluate and improve my work.
The political realities of our time–thank you, it’s a chance to test myself, to really stick to what I believe in.
That loss—thank you, for reminding me of what truly matters in life.
And on and on.
When Epictetus talks about how every situation has two handles, this is what he means. You can decide to grab onto anger or appreciation, fear or fellowship. You can pick up the handle of resentment or of gratitude. You can look at the obstacle or get a little closer and see the opportunity. Which one will you grab?
It’s so easy to miss the fact that Marcus Aurelius could not have been Marcus Aurelius without that unending series of troubles. The difficulties that shaped him, refined him, called greatness out of him. It’s also easy to miss, when we focus on all the bad breaks the guy got, all the tragedies he experienced, that on the whole, Marcus was incredibly lucky. After all, this dude was chosen to be emperor. For next to no reason at all, Hadrian selected a young boy and gifted him unlimited power and wealth and fame. Marcus had a wonderful wife, a stepfather he adored, amazing teachers and he discovered Stoicism, which guided him when he most needed it. For everything that went wrong in his life, for everything that was taken from him, the Gods actually gave him an equal number of gifts.
As Cicero pointed out, “You may say that deaf men miss the pleasure of hearing a lyre-player’s songs. Yes, but they also miss the squeaking of a saw being sharpened, the noise a pig makes when its throat is being cut, the roaring thunder of the sea which prevents other people from sleeping.”
See, there’s a positive to every negative!
In the chaos and dysfunction of the world, I try to notice where I have been gifted in the latter category than where I have been deprived in the former.
Besides, it’s already happened…what’s the use in getting upset?
So, as you gather with family and friends this Thanksgiving, appreciate the obvious gifts—the food, the health, the love in the room. But as the moment fades and life returns to its usual pace, challenge yourself to make gratitude a daily practice.
Not just for what is easy and joyful, but for what is hard.
For what tested you, stretched you, humbled you.
Whatever 2024 has been for you—however difficult, however painful—be grateful for it. Think about what it helped you miss. Think about how it shaped you. Think about how it could have been worse.
Write this gratitude down. Say it out loud.
Thank you.
Until you believe it.
