Wednesday – 12/5/2012

“You’ve been given a great gift, George: A chance to see what the world would be like without you.” – Clarence Odbody (from It’s a Wonderful Life)

Lately, it seems that more and more people are maintaining a “gratitude journal.” I’m sure most of you are aware of these, and some of you may have even kept one. All that is entailed is simply writing down something every day that you are extremely thankful for. The purpose is to allow yourself to feel more happy and optimistic about your life. Personally, I have never actually kept a journal, but often try to reflect on things in my life I am thankful for. Like most people, though, I probably don’t do it enough on a consistent basis.

I recently read an interesting take on this whole notion by Brett McKay, in which he describes his experience with trying to do this. His main conclusion was that he found the whole process extremely frustrating because he had done it on several occasions but never really got anything out of it. In his own words:

“I can flip through pages and pages of stuff that I’m thankful for and I think, “Man, I’ve got so much going for me. The world is great! Why don’t I feel any happier or less cynical about life?” On top of that, I know several folks who report that writing in a gratitude journal really helped them, so that made my failure at becoming happier through counting my blessings sting even more. I started to think that my extreme cynicism cankered my soul so much that I would never be able to feel happy or idealistic again. This of course resulted in my feeling more cynical, pessimistic, and bitter…”

My natural reaction was not to think that keeping such a journal would lead someone to more pessimism, but as Mr. McKay went on to elaborate, I began to understand why this was the case. And as it turns out, psychologists eventually researched this very topic, blaming the it on the “pleasure paradox” – the idea that people experience more joy from an event when there’s a bit of uncertainty and mystery associated with it. For example, finding a $5 bill on the street might offer you a tremendous amount of satisfaction, but getting a long expected $1,000 raise might just cause a shoulder shrug. Why? Because according to psychologists we’ve had a couple of months to think about and understand getting the raise, we’ve grown accustomed to the idea and so we don’t get much of a rise out of it. Thus, is the paradox, we want to comprehend the good things in our lives so we can repeat it, but as a result we end up reducing the amount of pleasure those same things give us.

According to McKay, his inability to garner gratitude is because he has become so adapted to having the things he’s grateful for that they no longer hold any uncertainty in his psyche, and according to research, uncertainty is the very thing that makes events and blessings in our lives more joyful and pleasurable. Not sure if this rings true with any of you, but if so, McKay’s suggestion is to employ a simple technique to feel happier and less discouraged about life, and more grateful for the people and things you have – “The George Bailey Technique.”

To truly appreciate this technique, one must have seen the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, at least once, and if you’re like me, probably several dozen times. If you’ve never seen the film, do yourself a favor and watch it this holiday season.

During the movie, George Bailey experiences something the Greeks referred to as “anagnorisis,” which is the sudden realization of a truth – where things really stand and one’s true relationship to others. To make a long story short, a psychological experiment was done where researchers formed two randomly selected groups of people. One group had to write a narrative on how they met their significant other; the other group had to “George Bailey” their significant other out of their lives by writing a narrative on ways in which they might not have ended up with them.

You probably know where I’m going with this. Those in the George Bailey group reported more happiness with their relationships than the other group. Researchers attributed this to the pleasure paradox. Those who wrote about how they met their significant other and probably recounted that story hundreds of times, but each time they retold it had little impact on them. On the contrary, the group that imagined their significant others absent from their lives, made the relationship seem special again.

I have yet to try this exercise on myself, but certainly plan to do so. A renewed sense of gratitude and appreciation for something in our lives that brings us happiness might be possible to achieve by simply thinking about all the ways it might have never happened and what our lives would be like as a result. Hopefully by doing this we will feel more thankful for the gifts in our life and much more optimistic overall. As we find ourselves stuck between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I can’t think of a better time during the year to really practice this!

Finally, I will be speaking at St. Bartholomew next Monday, December 10 at 7:30 PM in the Rectory meeting room. This is another opening event in which anyone interested in attending can do so.

As always, my sincerest thanks for your prayers and support – they are greatly appreciated!

Stand Strong!

Scott