Ungrateful Brat

A sentence once came to me in a constellation: The difference between something and nothing is gratitude.

A sentence once came to me in a constellation: The difference between something and nothing is gratitude.

It has come back to me a thousand times. I see it in myself often. I invest time, money, energy in a relationship – with a person, a project, an idea. When the result is disappointing somehow, my reflex is sometimes to blame (the person, project, or idea). In doing that, everything is caught in the net and dragged off into the darkness. Whether or not I realize it, my inner balance tips to negativity and the next investment doesn’t build on anything; it attempts to fill a hole. This person is the one! This project will prove me right! This idea is it!

Not only is Gratitude a generative force, ingratitude is a destructive one. Ingratitude eats away at our spirit. Nothing is enough – and we are not enough.

Where ingratitude is a habit, Gratitude can be a practice. Believe me, I hate most Gratitude posts, memes, and flowery invitations, but why? How dare you suggest that I be grateful? Oh, I’ve tried that, but it doesn’t work. Other people are grateful because they are luckier than I am.

Like many people, although I want things to change, I sometimes refuse to. So, I keep swimming in my toxic soup, blaming others – my ancestors, family, partners, colleagues, the world. Rather than build, I keep digging.

But time is short. Wherever you are on the timeline, time is short. Gratitude extends the sense of it and allows for continuity and coherence. Experience, pleasant or challenging, counted rather than discounted. Yes, even the terrible. Certainly, I never wanted to have to find Gratitude in the death of my husband. I never wanted that lesson. Still, once I widened my gaze, I began to find it anyway, not for his death but for his life. Counting all the things he gave, all the ways he made a difference, all the ways he still does. Gratitude builds a powerful memory path so I can better appreciate my own journey.

As I look back at my life and even at the lives of my predecessors, I can see how ingratitude – bitterness, resentment, disdain – has no impact on the “them” in my mind’s eye. Rather, it splashes back onto me and suffocates creativity, possibility, and love. What I offer is what I get in return. It’s the high cost of narcissism.

In terms of whatever success I have reached – capacity for self-care, peace, responsibility – Gratitude has made the difference between something and nothing. It’s still an everyday practice.

You know my first instinct when I come across a symbol of someone else’s achievement? It’s to be jealous, to resent them, to blame the stupidity of those who have elevated them to their position. I locate this habit at about 4 years old when my belonging was predicated on being the “golden child.” That little one, the toddler, couldn’t afford competition. Everything was at stake. Love was at stake. Was that even true? It felt true to that little body. And my underground navigational system is still flipped on when threatened. So, I have to remind myself to course correct. The adult one in charge. You can rest, little one; I am grateful for your efforts.

Building on Gratitude rather than digging out from under the fits and starts of ingratitude has let me – and continues to teach me – to live in the knowledge of my own regard. There is room for others once the “golden child” sees the prison bars of the begemmed cage. Their success doesn’t change the shape of my possibility.

I do have to keep cleaning my lens. I am grateful I still have time.

The difference between something and nothing is Gratitude. There’s a gift in the sentence – and an admonition.

Signing off now. I’m going to put hearts on some posts. It may not be my first instinct – that belongs to my little one – but it is my current practice. She is always relieved.