Why is Gratitude so Difficult?

I come from a long, respected line of worriers.

Photo by Audri Van Gores on Unsplash

My favorite time of year has come. Those weeks when summer transitions to fall. The hills are no longer green upon green upon green, and now have yellow and rust spots here and there and a few freckles of orange. Tractors are circling the hayfields, making hay while the sun shines, and the dog days of summer (what I call “mildew season”) are over. Though I am keenly aware of the effects of global warming on our global climate, today I can look at the natural world around me and see that all is as it should be.

Looking out and seeing “normal” behaviour and activity comforts me. That’s a good thing, since the rest of the world seems so far beyond normal - beyond ridiculous, beyond surreal, beyond satire. (And if you’re snagged up here already because I believe in global warming, I’m in some part, talking about you. But I don’t want to take that side trek here, so just sod off.)

I am a worrier. I come from a long, respected line of Irish United Brethren worriers. I come naturally to any situation with a critical eye, and I make judgments. I’m judgy. I can look at trends and immediately say, “I see where this is going, and it ain’t good.” My Irish guilt makes me feel like I am constantly making trouble, or in trouble. The work ethic built into my ancestry makes me distrust and dislike idle hands (others’ as well as my own), and my inability to function for an extended period of time in American society makes me feel like a failure. I’m also failing as a control freak.

All of this is in my DNA.

Clearly, I have issues I’m working on. But my point here is to help you imagine, if this is my natural disposition, what this world has been like for me since the pandemic. I remember, back then, wondering what the “new normal” would be like after the pandemic, when we so longed to get back to “normal.” I mean, this cannot possibly be our new “normal.” And yet, in so many ways, if you know history at all, you know a lot of this is normal behavior: sacrifice the people for the dollars. The oligarchy has become the obvious. But seriously — WTF? This. just. can’t. be.

So you can imagine how grateful I am to be able to sit on my porch and recognize something familiar. The hills here are doing what I have seen them do for the last 25 years. This is normal: the sun shining, the leaves falling, the crickets chirping. This. This I know. This is normal.

I find my solace here. That’s a rare thing for a worrier.

Being a judgy worrier is one of those issues I’ve been working on. I try to let others deal with their lives more, and for years, I have known and understood that a core counterbalance for worry is gratitude. (Did you think I was going to say “faith”? Yeah, that’s too far a reach for me right now.) Gratitude is something I can sometimes manage, but it is not easy to make it an ongoing attitude.

My thoughts of gratitude are often inspired by the moments when I see normal behavior in the hills. I am grateful for the sunlight, but also for the cooler temperatures and drop in humidity. I am grateful the hay equipment is all functioning with no long runs to distant cities for parts. (Knock on wood.) I am grateful for being able to plop down in my porch swing in the middle of the day since I have returned to fully-remote work. Which makes me grateful for reliable internet and technology —

— which then makes me worry again because our internet is Starklink (which reminds me of national politics), AI is slowly going to make me obsolete (which makes me wonder if I’ll make it to retirement), which makes me disgruntled with WV’s pretense as a right to work state, and then wonder if my social security, or this government, or this American experiment even exists by my retirement at all.

You can now see why gratitude can be challenging for a natural worrier in tune with trends. There was a time when control freaks with ‘tisms could see trends and attempt to adapt and plan in calculated strategies to avoid perceived complications and threats. Much of that went out with the pandemic, and the trends presented currently are terrifying.

So I look again to what I know. Round hay bales lined up in freshly cut fields. I close my eyes and listen to the chittering of a katydid, a sound that takes me back to childhood, sitting in the porch swing with my grandparents at the end of a long day of work at their weekend “retreat” cabins, still-warm jars of fresh canned green beans (grandpa preferred blue lake beans over half-runners) lined up on the kitchen table.

I can feel my chest loosen just a little, face lifted into the breeze, deep breathing the air. My shoulders relax, just a little, and I roll my head around to make the best of the reprieve. I know, just being able to have this moment, I am more blessed than most.

I don’t know what I would do if I had to deal with “the world out there” every day. Even after establishing strict news media input controls in my life (no “video” news at all, selected text media, and minimal social media), the trends of our current situation cannot be avoided. Prices are up, polls are down, and the country my grandparents knew is a ghost as well.

I’m surprised more people like me haven’t just completely lost it.

But I have the hills around me to help keep me sane, and moments when I remember to be grateful. We have shelter, food, water, furry children, and family. We have work, we have moments of rest, and we sleep well. We have a peaceful home, a bit rough around the edges, but mostly clean, and I think I have finally swept out all the spiders that insist on moving inside this time of year.

But I am familiar with the de-cobwebbing process, familiar with the smell of hay and late summer breezes. These are familiar to me. These are ordinary. These are normal.

In Zen, "the ordinary" refers to the simple, everyday experiences of life and mind, seen as the ultimate spiritual reality. Finding Zen in the ordinary means fully embracing and appreciating the mundane moments – like drawing water or carrying wood – recognizing that the true miracle is existence itself.

The practice involves a radical acceptance of life as it is, finding clarity and a profound sense of the interconnected nature of all things.

Which is great, until you get to that “we’re all interconnected” point. That’s where the problem comes in. If we are all connected, then, as a worrier, I’m pretty sure we’re all screwed.

Gratitude is difficult. Porch sitting helps inspire it in me.

For that, I am grateful.