Austin Scholar #40: Why We’re Teaching Gratitude Wrong

(& How To Fix It)

Hey, y'all!

I used to hate the gratitude part of Thanksgiving. I loathed sitting around the table listing off all the things I was grateful for–I'm not starving in Africa, yay.

It's not that I didn't have things to be grateful for. We're just teaching gratitude all wrong.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

This week from Austin Scholar...

1. Austin’s Anecdote: How I Learned Gratitude

2. Why We’re Teaching Gratitude Wrong (& How To Fix It)

3. Scholar’s Sources: The Proof Gratitude Is Important

Um, probably the craziest thing ever happened this week?! I actually reached 1,000 Twitter followers. One thousand actual people want to read what I have to say. To every single one of you reading this, a huge thank you for clicking on this newsletter and supporting me in transforming education.

On that note, lately, I’ve really been trying to work on my distribution, so David Perell had me write ten cold emails to cool people to show them my work. And wow, it was super embarrassing. Talking to people, in general, isn’t exactly my “thing,” but cold emails? Really not my thing. 

I will make sure to update y’all on how those turn out.

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Austin’s Anecdote: How I Learned Gratitude

A few years ago, I was in a pretty bad place.

It seemed like I could never get enough sleep and my thoughts were all twisted.

My days seemed pretty bleak. I would wake up, go to school, do homework, and go to bed. I didn't spend time with my friends and I didn't watch TV with my family. And even when I did force myself to take a break, nothing really seemed fun anymore.

My friends' houses were uncomfortable, TV shows were boring, music was repetitive, and exercise was miserable.

My brain was just... not in the right place. I couldn't find much in my life to be grateful for.

Now, let me be clear: to any outsider, I had a perfect life.

I lived in a nice apartment, went to a great school, had brilliant parents, and loved my sister.

But my brain wouldn't let me see that.

To me, I was trapped in a dark cage, forever obsessively doing math problems and balancing chemical equations. I couldn't see the light–couldn't see all the positive things that could bring me joy.

No one else could see that, though.

Every adult I met told me about "how lucky I am" or "how I had the best parents in the world."

But I didn’t believe them.

And so, I started to resent the idea of "gratitude" because people kept telling me that I must "feel so grateful," when I couldn't feel much of anything.

On TV, I saw teenagers who lived in nice apartments, went to great schools, and had brilliant parents–and they were called spoiled brats if they didn't feel "grateful enough."

I started to get really frustrated with myself because I didn't feel lucky or fortunate. The world was telling me to be grateful, but I couldn't feel it.

For years, whenever I thought of gratitude, I cringed because of all the pent-up frustration I had around not being able to see the good things in this world.

But funnily enough, last Thanksgiving (a year after stabilizing the chemical imbalances in my brain by using therapy), when my family was talking about the things we were grateful for at the dinner table, I realized I was able to list out a few things: our nice apartment, the great school I go to, my kind parents, and my absolutely incredible sister.

Those same things that I couldn't find any value in before had become brilliant parts of my life.

I no longer lived a monotone, black-and-white life. I could finally feel that warm, bright feeling in my chest when I thought about the incredible blessings I have.

So, now, because my mental health is, dare I say, pretty good these days, I am grateful.

I am content with my life. And it feels wonderful.

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Why We’re Teaching Gratitude Wrong (& How To Fix It)

Gratitude: the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.

Those are pretty words, but what do they actually mean? 

Let’s take a moment to look at the list of things typically brought up during a discussion about gratitude:

1. Food (There are starving kids in Africa, you know.)

2. Shelter (You’re so lucky to have a roof over your head.)

3. Phone (When I was your age…)

Because we can’t describe gratitude with a smiley face or angry eyes, to kids, gratitude is something that adults tell us to feel because our standard of living is better than others.

But let me be real: no one cares. 

Honestly, teenagers probably aren’t grateful for having food, shelter, or a phone. Most of us have never had to experience life without these things, so it’s hard for us to truly appreciate them.

When a parent starts the “let’s list out all of the things we’re grateful for” conversation during Thanksgiving dinner, the half-hearted answers of friends, family, food, shelter, or technology don’t mean anything.

We are not teaching kids what gratitude actually is. Instead of teaching kids to appreciate the things in their lives that they genuinely see the value of, we are teaching them that gratitude is defined by simply being glad we don’t have it worse.

But gratitude from a place of “having it better compared to others” isn’t helpful to teenagers. In fact, teenagers are supposed to be self-centered.

We’re in the stage of our lives where we’re trying to figure out who we are and what we can be. We are at the point where our lives are completely focused on ourselves. The rest of the world, including things our parents do for us, becomes background noise in our search for identity and independence.

Take me, for example. It’s not that I was a horrible, selfish brat. I was just trying to figure myself–and my thoughts–out, which narrowed my worldview into the things that only affected me.

At the time, I was simply unable to see the bigger picture.

Well then, Austin, should I just give up on my kid ever being grateful, you might be asking?

No. 

Kids aren’t incapable of feeling gratitude. It can just be hard for them to truly understand what gratitude is when talking about abstract, impersonal concepts, like food or shelter.

So, what can we do?

Well, the best thing that you can do (especially on Thanksgiving) is to reframe gratitude with things they can understand having or not having.

Here's how you do that:

Ask the following three questions

1. What is something that you have in your life that no one else in the room does? 

2. How does that thing impact your daily life?

3. Because you have that thing, is there something you can offer to someone else in the room?

When kids do this, instead of feeling like gratitude is a “supposed to,” because other people that they've never met have it worse than they do, gratitude becomes small. Personal.

Kids will be able to clearly understand that they have privileges, things, or opportunities that even the people close to them don't have.

For example, I could say I have the ability to play the piano. (No one else in my family can play.)

Whenever I'm stressed (a daily occurrence), I can play piano to clear my mind and take a break.

Finally, because I have the ability to play the piano, I can play a song for my parents.

In doing this exercise, I can truly see how lovely it is that I play piano. I can fill my family’s home with music. The other people in my family don't have this.

This exercise gives kids a great way to see for themselves why they might be grateful for something–without someone telling them they should, which is a much more powerful lesson.

And, you give them a chance to recognize what they have and to do something nice for someone else. Isn't that what gratitude is all about?

Now, gratitude isn't some indescribable feeling, lost in the lectures about starving kids in Africa.

Gratitude has become demystified. 

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Scholar’s Sources: The Proof Gratitude Is Important

This article does a fantastic job breaking down the science and studies behind why it’s so hard for teenagers to be grateful. (In case you want a more official source besides just me.)

Why spend so much time focusing on gratitude, you might ask? Well, this video shows the real-time benefits of showing gratitude. (It’s also sure to make you want to cry.)

Finally, if you want to learn the science of gratitude, check out this video.

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Thanks for reading. Go crush the week! See y'all on Sunday.