9 Comments
User's avatar
Tom White's avatar

“When I think about my friends, it seems obviously true that many of them have achieved their younger selves’ wildest dreams, and yet they don’t seem to be particularly enjoying it.”

Amen. There are many such cases. Two things come to mind:

1) The adage “A thankful heart hath a continual feast.”

2) The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing us that what we wanted was what we needed. I think modernity is largely a nightmare because we have everything we want, but nothing we need.

Expand full comment
Ben Mercer's avatar

last week, I spent a morning in a southern European town that was so dilapidated it made me consider whether modernity had been a disaster for the people who lived there. honestly it felt like a close run thing

Expand full comment
W. Arthur's avatar

I think what you’re saying is that you lacked maturity. So that’s what you’re learning now and, I think that will lead you to more of what you really need and your life will become happier day by day.

Expand full comment
Kris Gulati's avatar

"I took a picture of the matcha ice cream they gave us at the end of the meal but I was too drunk on sake to properly t taste it. "

Weirdly enough, this added to the reading experience in a positive way :)!

Expand full comment
Lisa Marie Lawler's avatar

Thank you for sharing this so honestly. You capture the strange tug-of-war between gratitude and self-doubt so well, it’s so human to long for presence and still end up overthinking the playlist.

Expand full comment
Meets ⋆☀︎.'s avatar

"I can change what I do, but I can’t fight what I want..." slapped me with familiarity.

Expand full comment
Chang Rong's avatar

This post reminds me of a f***boy I used to mess around with. Whenever I complained about some problem of mine, he'd tell me, "You should be grateful. You're so much luckier than a lot of people."

And with all the suffering in the world, he wasn't wrong. But still, he PMO. Also, he didn't respect me, but that was because I didn't respect myself, but I digress.

Don't get me wrong - I agree that gratitude is awesome. I notice a marked improvement in my mental well-being when I actually write down three things I'm grateful for each day. That shit works.

Sometimes, though, when I need something a lil stronger than gratitude, I remind myself I'm going to die. Then, my present problems pale in comparison, and life ain't so bad.

Expand full comment
Stella Inabo's avatar

Thank you.

Expand full comment
W. Arthur's avatar

Well your association with gratitude changes depending on your age. According to my 8 year old granddaughter, she’s grateful for toys or candy as gifts. Of course for whatever reason some people give her money. She isn’t very grateful for money. She can’t eat it and it’s complicated. Should she save it for college, buy some clothes she wants, or some toys. But then that gets complicated too. It’s actually a good exercise on how to handle money but that’s a real yawn. When you get older and break out on your own, your relationship with money becomes quite different. You never have enough. You’ve got car payments, rent, furnishings, tables, chairs, linens, flower vases, and wall art, gas, insurance, medical bills to say nothing of food, beverages, date night finances, and that thing you loved at the auction. Then, as you continue to age, and maybe even have some money saved or you get old enough to start collecting Social Security and your needs change even again. Now you want to be able to shop, to go to the movies, to eat out once in a while and, of course, go out for drinks with the gang. If you can afford that, life is good. And if life is good, you need to express gratitude. The great thing about gratitude is that there’s of plenty to be grateful for. Bad things happen to everyone, of course, but wallowing in self pity never helped anyone. At least I feel a little better when I have a lot for which to be grateful. You only have to go back a generation or two to find people who had much much less than we do. So we should be grateful. And gratitude begets more gratitude. It’s all good. Then we can talk about the way in which things are changing for the better. There really are some exciting tech companies on the market developing products to make our lives that much better thanks. So we should have a party. How about your place?

Expand full comment