on gratitude
so christmas is coming up, and we’re already butt-deep in chanukah. normally i send my amazon wishlist off to my parents every year on black friday, so they have a month to buy my presents. i always overpack it so they can only buy a few things, which keeps the element of surprise intact. it’s a nice little tradition. but i totally screwed the pooch on it this year, waiting over three weeks past the normal time to fire away the email, and i’ve realized that there’s a reason for this, one i sort of unconsciously dodged until tonight.
see, i don’t even think i really want gifts for christmas this year. (my ten-year-old self is crying in his cynicism-grave.) instead of gifts, or perhaps as your gift, i want you to do me a favor. i know i already threw a five-figure campaign to get my book published, shamelessly hawking the concept to you for three months, and you’re probably tired of my asking favors of you. but this favor is different. this favor is both easy to do and free, and it won’t take you too long.
here is why i want this favor: it’s because this was, in many ways, the hardest year of my life. it became uninspiring and blasé in march and a minor hell in may, and hasn’t let up since. two people that i know have died. one of my friends got cancer. another one of my friends spent the entire year wracked with emotional torment because their significant other left the country. dozens of my friends were laid off, and most of them didn’t get their jobs back. i went six months not sleeping well. and while a lot of stuff has resolved itself (e.g. i’m writing a book, i don’t have to worry about its funding, and i took a job that’s more substantially more well-suited to my own interests and beliefs), it’s been two steps back in my personal life, which has made things doubly hard on me.
so here is the favor. ready? i want you to be grateful for the good things in your life. i want you to go out and express that gratitude however you see fit. if you’re one of the fourteen people left in the country that’s all-the-way happy with your job, go and buy drinks for your boss and coworkers. (if your boss teetotals, hug them instead.) if you somehow legitimately enjoy the winters in chicago, throw a snowball fight, or take a walk outside at 2am just because. write thank-you letters to your friends. lazy? shitty handwriting? fine, write emails instead, they will still appreciate them. healthy but uninsured? a minor miracle: be grateful for everyone who covers their mouth on public transit. tip your letter carrier. overtip your bartender. ride the santa train. walk down NMA at 5:30p on a wednesday with the holiday decorations out. send out text messages to the people you wish you connected with more, asking how they are doing. (here is what the text could say: “Hey, how are you doing?”)
but also - and here is the mushy romantic part! get ready! - if you have a lover, here is the most important thing that you can do. you should go over to that lover and tell them that you are grateful for their existence, and their love. because one very, very sacred thing that exists in this rather bleak-at-best world is knowing that someone out there gives such a passionate damn about you, your health, your success, and your well-being, and is willing to take you seriously and meet you halfway in their life.
this can come in any form that you want. sit down and say a few sentences. hug them. it doesn’t matter how you show your appreciation for all they have done for you, but it does matter rather tremendously that you do it. and i think that no matter what bullshit cards this year has dealt you, it’s very acutely worth it to go back and reassess the ways in which your life is charmed and blessed and blissed - and that an awful lot of people in our frayed and anxious generation tend to lose sight of one of the more significant ones.
