Let's see if this gratitude thing works

[sabotabby]

A FB friend with whom I have many and frequent disagreements asked people what they're grateful for. My general response to having a year from hell that culminates in a civilization-shaking plague is not to be grateful about it, but there actually are a few things and I'd be remiss if I didn't state them.

Part of the reason why I don't keep track of things I'm grateful for is that I feel like it's tempting capricious fate/the uncaring universe/the Elder Gods to talk about good things, lest you paint a target on them. So assume a knock wood after all of these things:

I am grateful that:

• No one I know or love has died yet
• I am still getting paid for now and have a roof over my head
• My cat hasn't gotten worse
• I have a supportive online community that is keeping me sane-ish
• I've cultivated an inner life and can handle solitude
• I went vegan and had to learn how to be resourceful in cooking, particularly with canned foods well before this
• No one in the neighbourhood likes the same ramen that I do
• I put so much of my work online already and don't have to necessarily scramble from scratch
• People in my neighbourhood are mostly serious about social distancing
• There's a thread on the caremongering group that is about what we're going to do when all this is over because sometimes it seems like this will never be over
• You're reading this, and I'm grateful for you

There, did I do it right?

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Comments

[sabotabby]

I feel like my grandparents did something similar when I was little but maybe I'm remembering it wrong. It's something familiar, at any rate.

I have a few superstitious things that are kind of intrusive, like needing to wish on 11:11, avoiding cracks (yes really), pulling up my legs when driving over a train track. It's kind of quirky I guess, but mainly not fun at all.

I also don't do gratitude lists because I sometimes find gratitude lists smarmy, which is perhaps my own issue. (Obviously I don't mind non-smug ones like this problematic.)

I usually find them either smarmy (if the person is really lucky and they're basically humblebragging) or frustrating (if the person has a lot of bad things going on and it feels like they're forcing a smile.) But I really do want to appreciate what I have.

[annie_r]

Same.
https://jel.jewish-languages.org/words/254
My mom would just say, "Don't give it a keinahora" if something good happened, so I guess I just learned that sounding like I might be bragging was not done out loud. I still say 'knock wood' a lot of the time. It's hard for me to express true gratitude when everything seems so complicated and has so many caveats. Like, I am very privileged in so many ways, and in others, so f'ed up. Like, if I were to make a gratitude list, I'd also make a list of things that suck. And then feel bad that I was centering myself, etc blah blah. So I'm not sure that gratitude helps me, but I do acknowledge my good fortune to myself.

I've got a bit of OCD superstitiousness (like the cracks, yeah, but where I live there aren't any sidewalks in the immediate area, but I grew up in nyc, cracks every few steps.) I didn't know about wishing on 11:11 but I'm always happy to see that and other repetitive numerics on digital clocks. 11:11 is the most common since I am likely to be awake for it twice a day. I do things like, when I leave the house I must say 'see you later' to the pets in a certain way, and say it a few times in case I didn't get it right. But I don't think my thoughts get too intrusive unless I'm super-stressed. When I was a kid I had a ton of intrusive thoughts; I should write about that.

But I like your list! I love ramen but probably not the spicy kind. The caremongering group is on fb? I cannot be on fb, oh well. I am grateful for you.

[sabotabby]

Keinahora! That's the word.

I have a lot of intrusive thoughts. It's pretty bad, actually. I think it's gotten worse, not better, with age.

The caremongering group is on fb? I cannot be on fb, oh well.

Yeah. I'm not useful in it. I have not a lot of skills, no attention span, and I'm not willing to bet my mom's life on helping out people with deliveries and such.

[mistersmearcase]

Knocking on wood/saying keinahora is the only one I am sort of compelled to do. (I settle for knock on head a lot of the time.) I have one or two others I think are cute and do some of the time, like throwing salt over my shoulder if I spill it. I think there's one other. Even the knocking on wood one makes me feel silly since I believe in no supernatural anything but I guess maybe you could count the almost sentient-feeling unfair awfulness of life as a higher power, right?

I may do a similar list to this one today. Keinahora.

[sabotabby]

I do the salt thing too. And the knocking on wood thing, though sometimes I just say it or knock on my head.