I wager you clicked on this site anticipating a read about gratitude. We will indeed be talking about gratitude. But, full disclosure: we are also going to be talking about what happens in a lack of gratitude, and what life is like without it. The intention of discourse about ingratitude is to throw the double property of gratitude as a necessity AND a gift into high relief, to hopefully begin to illuminate the nature of gratitude as the most remarkable and underestimated activating change agent in our existence. I hope to begin to make the case that gratitude is - in addition to being that nice fuzzy feeling we get once a year at Thanksgiving voicing our thanks - a workhorse of value and meaning for any and every part of human life. It is the ingredient in human existence that is so foundational and prevalent that, well, the first thing we do as humans is take gratitude for granted - and then forget about it. 

 

I make the case that gratitude is THE thing that creates all value. It goes beyond religion and spirituality, beyond our cognitive faculties, and no one has a corner on it because gratitude belongs to everyone in full capacity without condition. If you ever get the sense from any person or organization or body of knowledge that they have a corner on gratitude, run. If you are being told that you are ungrateful or you are fundamentally not enough as you are, run. Abuse of gratitude is the cornerstone of a cult.

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What we're talking about here is a way of thinking about gratitude that dissolves any esotericism around it. This isn't a value system with an agenda to replace what you have. If anything, this could offer an appreciative perspective on what you already have, and help you amplify the good in it. There are no levels to unlock. If someone tries to lock the rewards of gratitude behind a paywall, run. That is not how this works. 

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Gratitude is intensely and viscerally practical, and like Dorothy clicking the shoes she was already wearing, when we become conscious of gratitude - and also of it's antithesis - that's all we need to begin making the changes we want to life, and also actively express appreciation for the good we already have.