Do you give thanks?

I don’t mean in theory, come to think of it, but regularly, religiously, as part of your routine. Do you tally your luck, thank your stars, praise God from whom all blessings flow, prostrate your pride before the immensity of your fortune? Or do you wake fretting, fuming about this and that, grumpy at your fate?

I ask not to learn your answer but to locate my own.

I was raised to say please and thank you – to anyone and everyone, God included. Formulaic propriety felt goody-goody, insincere, clueless. One conformed because one was supposed to, not because one felt like it. Thanksgiving was for simpletons like the Gershwins’ Porgy (“I got plenty of nothing”) and Irving Berlin’s Annie Oakley (“I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night”). “Count your blessings” meant ”phew” more than “hurray.”

A perplexing paradox of human nature is the inverse correlation between gratitude and material comfort. The rich seem to be less happy than the poor. One of the richest dudes in America is also the crankiest. (Guess who.)

Discontent is a human ailment. Other creatures feel bad for a reason but they don’t mope at their comparative pittance, contrasting their actuality to some imaginary trove. Good for many humans is never good enough; we taunt ourselves with the idea of better.

I’ve been a malcontent all my adult days. In secret, of course – to whine aloud is to exhibit weakness – but persistently, vehemently. My private pages blaze with protestations about all I’m owed. Poor me! This ingratitude is hard-wired, I fear, the inevitable flipside of ambition – the higher you dream, the farther you fail – but need it rule my mental state? We are who we are, of course, but also who we permit ourselves to be. One can “turn that frown upside down” – sometimes – with effort. As in boyhood’s bedside prayers blessing “Mommy and Daddy” and the rest, by reciting one can recall all one’s glad for – can and should – for one’s emotional health. Existence is better than we give it credit for. This is not naivete but moral calisthenics, to pump up one’s spirit’s pecs and abs.

Thanks require no recipient. Many invent divinities for that purpose, but accident or fate will serve as well. The purpose of thanksgiving is not to inveigle supernatural favor with flattery, but to rebalance our awareness so we feel better. However bad, things aren’t that bad, look on the bright side!

That mysterious inverse correlation isn’t hard to explain. Our materialist culture needs us to repose our hopes in things: upbeat consumer sentiment means more spending, earnings, bigger paychecks, etc. The more we have the less we believe this promise. Possession doesn’t equal self-possession. “A man is rich,” wrote Thoreau, “in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.” And: “Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only.” Maybe the best way to turn our frowns upside down is to turn our pockets inside out.

In bygone eras, folks gave thanks more. Handel’s and Bach’s works brim with full-throated Hallelujahs. Romantics and Moderns took to moping. Young adults, we read, are their unhappiest ever. Our electorate is fulminous. Unhappiness makes stupid mistakes (suicide and the Nameless One are two examples).

I’m enrolling in Lobgesang #101 for my mental wellbeing. (“Lobgesang” is German for hymn of praise.) No more being made bitter by better! Oprah’s onto something when she chirrups: “The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.” No Pollyanna but no Polyphemus either. Give thanks!