I don’t quite understand gratitude journaling. First of all, gratitude is the same thing as gratefulness or thankfulness, right? If yes, it means, you are glad because you got stuff you did not really earn, you got stuff that was not yours by right, was not owed to you, right? Because when a debt is paid or you get paid for your work, you don’t feel grateful, this is yours by right.
So to me gratitude journaling seems to drive your focus on the things you got without earning them. Is that supposed to help people who have self-esteem problems? SSC wrote how most depressed people feel like a burden, how the heck does feeling grateful for things one does not really earn or deserve make one feel less of a burden?
What am I missing here?
If anything, I would experiment with achievement journaling.
Because when a debt is paid or you get paid for your work, you don’t feel grateful, this is yours by right.
That sounds like a deeply unsatisfying way to live; it seems like you will mostly be disappointed by the things that are “yours by right” that you don’t get.
The point of gratitude journaling is to focus on how your life has many good things in it. “I got my paycheck for the hours I worked this week; I’m thankful that my employer is honest and prompt, I’m thankful that I have a job, I’m thankful that past-me put in the effort to develop skills relevant to this job, I’m thankful that I live within my means...” and so on. This might involve lowering your expectations so that actually being paid is remarkable enough to write down.
If yes, it means, you are glad because you got stuff you did not really earn
If you read a bit of the happiness literature you find that people feel more happy when buying experiences than when buying “stuff”. When doing gratitude journaling, don’t focus on stuff but on experience.
was not yours by right, was not owed to you, right?
Thinking about rights isn’t very fun.
Let’s say that on your way to work a beautiful woman smiles at you. A appropriate reaction is to simple feel good and be grateful. Thinking about whether or not you deserve that she smiles at you on the other hand is stressful and not fun.
Focusing on gratitude shifts attention away from the question whether or not you deserve something.
On LW Elo wrote that they are much more happy than most other smart people that they know. If you look through her post a good portion of them express gratitude like http://lesswrong.com/lw/m3o/lesswrong_experience_of_flavours/canb. That’s the kind of post most people on LW wouldn’t write. It’s reflective of a happier mindset.
This is (I think) an extension of mindfulness practice. So the ultimate point of the exercise is to help you conscientiously notice and assign weight to a certain class of experience. Your feeling of entitlement is opposed to that in the sense that humans tend not to notice a well-functioning machine. So if we put a dollar in a vending machine and candy comes out, we might enjoy the candy, or be sad about not having a dollar any more, but we rarely take any time to be excited about how great it is to have a machine that performs the swap. Same with getting a paycheck.
Ideally, gratitude journaling expands the class of things you have to be happy about. It adds the vending machine as an object of joy, rather than an ‘inert’ object that catches our attention only when it fails.
Gratitude deals with friendship, not contracts. They are more vaguely defined. With a contract, you both agree beforehand on the exact way each of you will help the other. With friendship, you just generally help each other when one of you needs help and the other is in a position to offer it. You may have earned the help with earlier friendship. Or maybe someone helped you to start a friendship, on the basis that you are likely to pay for it later.
I’m not familiar with gratitude journaling. I guess it would make you feel like you have lots of friends.
I don’t quite understand gratitude journaling. First of all, gratitude is the same thing as gratefulness or thankfulness, right? If yes, it means, you are glad because you got stuff you did not really earn, you got stuff that was not yours by right, was not owed to you, right? Because when a debt is paid or you get paid for your work, you don’t feel grateful, this is yours by right.
So to me gratitude journaling seems to drive your focus on the things you got without earning them. Is that supposed to help people who have self-esteem problems? SSC wrote how most depressed people feel like a burden, how the heck does feeling grateful for things one does not really earn or deserve make one feel less of a burden?
What am I missing here?
If anything, I would experiment with achievement journaling.
That sounds like a deeply unsatisfying way to live; it seems like you will mostly be disappointed by the things that are “yours by right” that you don’t get.
The point of gratitude journaling is to focus on how your life has many good things in it. “I got my paycheck for the hours I worked this week; I’m thankful that my employer is honest and prompt, I’m thankful that I have a job, I’m thankful that past-me put in the effort to develop skills relevant to this job, I’m thankful that I live within my means...” and so on. This might involve lowering your expectations so that actually being paid is remarkable enough to write down.
In general that’s done by setting a target of at least 3 things to write down every day, so you just pick the best ones.
If you read a bit of the happiness literature you find that people feel more happy when buying experiences than when buying “stuff”. When doing gratitude journaling, don’t focus on stuff but on experience.
Thinking about rights isn’t very fun.
Let’s say that on your way to work a beautiful woman smiles at you. A appropriate reaction is to simple feel good and be grateful. Thinking about whether or not you deserve that she smiles at you on the other hand is stressful and not fun.
Focusing on gratitude shifts attention away from the question whether or not you deserve something.
On LW Elo wrote that they are much more happy than most other smart people that they know. If you look through her post a good portion of them express gratitude like http://lesswrong.com/lw/m3o/lesswrong_experience_of_flavours/canb. That’s the kind of post most people on LW wouldn’t write. It’s reflective of a happier mindset.
I understood it as focusing on everything good that happened… whether it was your work, luck, or a mix of both.
The goal is to cultivate the feeling “my life is good”. Which will help reduce anxiety, or something like that.
This is (I think) an extension of mindfulness practice. So the ultimate point of the exercise is to help you conscientiously notice and assign weight to a certain class of experience. Your feeling of entitlement is opposed to that in the sense that humans tend not to notice a well-functioning machine. So if we put a dollar in a vending machine and candy comes out, we might enjoy the candy, or be sad about not having a dollar any more, but we rarely take any time to be excited about how great it is to have a machine that performs the swap. Same with getting a paycheck.
Ideally, gratitude journaling expands the class of things you have to be happy about. It adds the vending machine as an object of joy, rather than an ‘inert’ object that catches our attention only when it fails.
Humans are adaptation executors, not fitness maximizers, so this explanation is useful for evolutionary psychology, but it’s not what goes on in people’s minds.
Gratitude deals with friendship, not contracts. They are more vaguely defined. With a contract, you both agree beforehand on the exact way each of you will help the other. With friendship, you just generally help each other when one of you needs help and the other is in a position to offer it. You may have earned the help with earlier friendship. Or maybe someone helped you to start a friendship, on the basis that you are likely to pay for it later.
I’m not familiar with gratitude journaling. I guess it would make you feel like you have lots of friends.