Lambert/Arch/Getty Images, circa 1945By Henry Fountain
NEW YORK (The New York Times),
November 22, 2007:
It is Thanksgiving Day, the one day of the year when you’re expected to be grateful.
But according to an army of psychologists, writers and talk show hosts like Oprah, giving thanks only today is a lost opportunity. You should be grateful all the time, they say, and one of the best ways is in writing — by keeping a “gratitude journal.”
Television programs, books, radio shows and Web sites point to research that shows that keeping a list of things you’re thankful for can make you happier.
Could this mild exercise, jotting down a few grateful thoughts, really be the key to contentment? It seems a little too easy, like those infomercials that promise a stomach to die for with just five minutes a day on the Abdomenizer or a full head of hair by spraying a can of gunk on your bald spot.
I found it hard to believe, so I decided to see for myself. I started a gratitude journal.
Now, mind you, in the words of a colleague, I am not one of the grumpier people around. I like to think that my innate level of happiness — my “set point,” as psychologists call it, which I can go a bit above or below, depending on circumstances — is fairly high. But according to proponents of what is known as positive psychology, by keeping a journal I should become happier still.
Robert Emmons, a psychologist at the University of California, Davis, and a leading expert in positive psychology, whetted my appetite for what could come.
“There are really tangible, concrete benefits to being grateful,” said Dr. Emmons, the author of “Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier” (Houghton Mifflin).
Health improves, relationships get better, people are more active and enthusiastic. There are benefits for others, too, as happier people are more creative, productive and easier to be around.
Dr. Emmons said that even people who are lonely and isolated can become less so. “If you can combat those feelings by the simple practice of keeping a gratitude journal, that’s a pretty significant finding,” he said.
(For the record, not only am I not all that grumpy, I am also not particularly lonely and isolated. In case you were wondering.)
But early on in my writing exercises I learned one thing: Keeping a journal may be simple, as Dr. Emmons says, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
For instance, there is the sheer discipline of writing. At first, I merely scribbled random, not particularly insightful thoughts.
“The key is not just to write it down, but to write it down mindfully — to focus, to imagine, to re-experience,” said Tal Ben-Shahar, a lecturer in psychology at Harvard and the author of the recent book “Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment” (McGraw-Hill). That way, he added, we become aware of good things that have happened to us. “If we’re not aware of the good things in our lives, then as far as we’re concerned they don’t exist.”
For me, though, there was the question of what good things I should be aware of. I started with sweeping platitudes about being thankful for having a roof over my head, and for having wonderful friends and family, but I found it all too broad and open-ended and ultimately unsatisfying. It turns out I’m not alone in those kinds of feelings.
“I was sort of annoyed by my gratitude journal,” said Gretchen Rubin, who chronicled the year she spent trying to become happier in a book, “The Happiness Project,” to be published in 2009, and a blog (happinessproject.typepad.com).
While she acknowledged that journals work for many people — “it’s probably one of the top five things for increasing happiness,” she said — it was a trial for her.
“It’s so limitless,” she said. “ ‘I’m grateful for air conditioning. I’m grateful for living in a democratic society.’ I didn’t find it particularly happiness-inducing.”
Ms. Rubin found other ways to express her gratitude. A lawyer turned writer, she found that just opening her laptop every day made her feel grateful for her new career.
Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychologist at the University of California, Riverside, whose book, “The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want” (Penguin Press), comes out next month, said that for some people gratitude journals are a chore. The key, she said, was not to feel compelled to write all the time. In her research, she found that people who wrote journals once a week were happier, but those who wrote three times a week were not.
Other people find it corny. “Gratitude is not for everyone,” she said. “If you don’t feel sincere and authentic while you’re doing it, it’s not going to work for you.”
Dr. Lyubomirsky admits to some feelings like that herself. One alternative, she said, would be to spend 15 minutes once a week writing a letter of gratitude to someone you know. That might end up being more sincere.
Whatever the method, studies show that you need to keep a journal for a couple of months, at least, to notice an effect. And like working out on the Abdomenizer, you’ve got to keep it up, otherwise the tendency is to fall back to your set point of happiness.
The jury is out on whether I’m happier. I stuck with my journal, but after combating feelings of open-endedness and corniness, I settled for much more specific feelings of gratitude. Being thankful for a tiny act, I found, was far more satisfying because it felt more immediate and genuine. So I was grateful for the free parking space I found at the train station, for the fruit vendor who finally had some ripe bananas and, the ultimate act of kindness, for what I’ll call the Creamed Onions Episode.
We had invited our neighbor Lisa and her family over for Thanksgiving. In an e-mail message, I had gone over some menu items, and mentioned my favorite side dish. “Ah, creamed onions,” Lisa replied. “Wonderful.”
Over 30 years of cooking Thanksgiving meals, my creamed onions — my mother’s creamed onions, really, since I’d gotten the recipe from her — were met mostly with silence. It has been pointed out to me that some of this response was no doubt because the recipe consists solely of boiled onions and large gobs of cream cheese. But whatever, I was grateful for Lisa’s enthusiasm.
Flushed with this sense of gratitude, I began to wonder what good it did. I had asked Dr. Emmons and others about the potential for narcissism. Can’t being thankful just become an exercise in self-absorption?
“That is a perception that people have,” Dr. Emmons said. But it’s a misperception.
“Sure, there’s obviously some benefits to one’s self,” he added. But being happy “expands the self rather than shrinks it.”
Part of being happy involves engaging in meaningful pursuits, he said. “And many of those are found outside the self. Happy people have commitments to causes outside the self.”
So here, in an effort to be more expansive, I share my mother’s creamed onion recipe with the world:
Peel up a bag or two of yellow onions (not the pearl variety, just regular yellow ones, preferably on the smaller side). Boil them in a pot of water for 20 minutes or so. Drain. Throw in a block or two of cream cheese. Stir as the cream cheese melts. Serve.
Couldn’t be more simple. Like a gratitude journal.
Copyright 2007 | The New York Times Company
