We are often told how important it is to have gratitude in our life. How more meaningful life can feel if we experience gratitude on a regular basis. And it seems that we have become so aware of it that most of us take real effort to feel grateful for everything we have.
Even though it’s becoming almost easy to feel gratitude for everything in our life, how do we deal with lack of gratitude when we expect it from others for something we do or give?
What do we do with that pinch of unfairness when we don’t feel appreciated or acknowledged? How do we suppress the desire to dramatically “drop it all” and to try to show everybody how they couldn’t go on without us?
Before you try to answer these questions, let’s discover what gratitude is from a psychological standpoint. It is not just an emotion. It actually has a cognitive component. Appreciation is a skill that ungrateful people have not developed. Psychologists believe that ungrateful people simply lack the ability to feel grateful.
Another opinion states that gratitude is not only a skill, but a disposition, a propensity. Ungrateful people are programmed to see good things as not good enough. All of this likely stems from childhood when we are taught or not taught to appreciate others.
Ingratitude is not a fun partner. Whoever helps may feel disappointed that he does not receive appreciation, but who does not feel gratitude takes the worst hit.
“Unhappiness is a contagious disease caused by a chronic deficiency of gratitude”, wrote Mokokoma Mokhonoana. Science confirms as much: the ability to experience gratitude has been linked to high levels of happiness, well-being, and satisfaction in life. Ungratefulness, on the other hand, would condemn us to a state of chronic unhappiness.
Ungrateful people have a higher risk of suffering from mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, different types of phobias, as well as falling into addictive behaviors, such as nicotine, alcohol, and drugs.
Research also shows that ungrateful people are more dependent and less autonomous than those who experience gratitude, which means that they are in deep need of the others. These people also have problems of self-acceptance and often lack a purpose in life.
Ungratefulness can take a toll on physical health. It has been proven that gratitude decreases the level of stress, anxiety and worries, and ungrateful people often report higher levels of stress and a greater number of physical symptoms.
Gratitude also improves the quality of sleep. Not only does it allow us to fall asleep faster, but it helps us get deeper and more restful sleep. Why? Gratitude inhibits the automatic negative thoughts that prevent us from falling asleep when our head hits the pillow.
So how can knowing all this help us when we are faced with ungratefulness? It can open up an understanding that the person or people you are dealing with lack specific cognitive skills that were likely not taught in their early life, that they probably find it hard to experience positive emotions or even feel lonely and lost. Having the advantage of this knowledge we can look for ways to redirect that person’s ungrateful mindset. Nothing too straightforward or drastic is needed. Oftentimes just a thought-provoking, even rhetorical, question can make the gears start turning. Lead by example of gratitude and a positive outlook. Judge as little as possible. Be curious. Dig a little deeper. We all depend on and affect each other. And even if we have “the worst offender” in front of us, the situation can be shifted by taking that first step towards non-judgement and the effort to understand.
