How To Be Grateful When Everything Sucks

In the wake of the two mass shootings over the weekend in the U.S., it’s obvious that everything sucks. These are just the latest violent sprees in this country, where mass shootings happen regularly. Government interventions have been ineffective and the current administration has stoked divisiveness. We are awash with guns and hatred, and it definitely, unquestionably sucks. Worse than sucks, it’s tragic and horrible and almost hopeless. Ordinary folks — people like me who vote and pay taxes but otherwise have no political power — feel utterly helpless about the state of our nation. When things suck this severely, it’s very hard to be grateful.

But grateful we must be, truly, because even when everything is this terrible, the goodness is so much greater. When things are this dark, we desperately need light. By practicing gratitude, we can find unity in the things that really matter, and in that unity we have the power to eradicate violence and hate among our species.

Even people who are political opposites are not that different deep down. Human beings from any place on Earth, any culture, any appearance or tradition, all want the same things at our core. We want to be safe. We want food and shelter and belonging. We want to feel like we matter. Everyone wants these things.

As Maya Angelou knew and taught, “We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.”

Maybe the hateful shooters who murdered innocents also wanted these things and lashed out because they couldn’t connect. I have just as hard a time finding compassion for them as I do for Donald Trump and the obvious bigots who support him. But leave that aside for now.

Hate is counterproductive here. We need love, and gratitude can help foster it.

Start small. For instance, are you reading this on a computer or phone? Maybe take a moment to feel thankful for your working eyes, your ability to read and the miraculous piece of technology that brought these words to you.

Where are you? Consider what you might appreciate about your current environment. Even if you’re in line at the DMV or at court waiting to see the judge, you’re relatively safe and content in this moment, with a few minutes of leisure to read.

While 29 people were being killed while shopping at Walmart or unwinding at Ned Pepper’s, I was celebrating a milestone with my family as my niece and nephew had their Bar/Bat Mitzvah together over the weekend. I was all warm and fuzzy with joy watching my brother and sister-in-law swell with pride as their kids achieved this accomplishment in front of a whole community of relatives and friends. While families in Texas and Ohio were mourning inconceivable losses, my family and I were getting down on a dance floor in Long Beach.

The week before my wedding two years ago, 58 people were mowed down at a concert in Las Vegas. I know that number by heart. (Though I just double-checked it because I worked for the AP for so long.) Just as I was about to celebrate my happy occasion, 58 innocent music lovers — people like me, people who ARE me — were senselessly shot dead, terrified in their final moments. It’s incomprehensible. Fifty-eight people who would never get married, or never get to see their spouse again. Fifty-eight people who did nothing wrong. Countless hundreds or thousands in wrenching grief over their deaths. How could I be joyful about my wedding or anything else?

Granted, I have a history of anxiety and depression, but I don’t think that’s what’s at play here. Our collective stomach-churning, soul-burning response to these shootings is deeply, profoundly human. It’s a sign of hope, and it’s something to be grateful for.

We can’t “fight” hate. We can only dissolve it. The human ideal of the Golden Rule — doing unto others as you’d have done unto you — only works when love is at the center of the equation. If you’re thinking about hateful shit befalling someone, even someone despicable, you are not helping to create a more compassionate world.

So I’m trying to channel that energy into gratitude. Gratitude for every little thing. Grateful that I’m alive and change is possible.

I once heard William Shatner (of all people) talking about the African concept of ubuntu, and it touched something essential in me. It’s translated as “I am because we are,” but it signifies a sense of human beings belonging to one another. It is our humanity that we create together.

So amid these horrors, let us be grateful for light, optimism and compassion, where ever it may be. Let us be so grateful that we cultivate these qualities in ourselves, for the sake of us all.