THE CASE FOR BEING UNGRATEFUL

With a dedicated holiday and an entire season of gratitude, is there a case to be made for being ungrateful?  

By Elizabeth Bernstein  

Kim Murray sat down in her office one recent morning, opened a notebook, and wrote a heading on the top of a page: “Things I am ungrateful for.”

On her list: Car repairs. Technical issues with her website. Weight gain. A friend who let her down.

“It helps to acknowledge the things that are wrong,” says the 54-year-old business owner from Howell, Mich.

Murray was pushing back against gratitude, or at least the dark side of it. Forcing ourselves to be grateful when we don’t really feel it can be harmful to our mental well-being and our relationships, psychologists say.

This dark gratitude can prevent us from acknowledging, and addressing, the problems in our life. And it will only make us feel worse in the long run.

“We can’t trick ourselves into positivity,” says Peggy DeLong, a licensed psychologist in Long Valley, N.J. “Tough emotions need to be addressed or they stay with us and continue to grow.”

Try telling that to the gratitude industry. Publishers, coaches, influencers and retail companies—not to mention actual therapists (and our moms!)—all admonish us to “be grateful.” We can buy gratitude journals, listen to gratitude meditations and wear gratitude sweaters. Recently at a home-goods store, I heard a woman shopping nearby groan. “Even the plates are scolding me,” she told her friend. What was written on the platter she was holding? You guessed it.

Being grateful is an American tradition, especially this season. And research has shown that it has mental- and physical-health benefits, including less depression and better sleep, relationships and success at work.

But gratefulness needs to be genuine to be effective.

Performative gratitude—compelling ourselves to be grateful when we’re not—is a form of toxic positivity. The energy we expend trying to avoid the uncomfortable feeling will, ironically, keep us focused on the problem.

Then we feel guilty because we failed to be grateful.

“Forced gratitude is manipulating...READ MORE