I Am Not Grateful for Covid-19 and You Don’t Have to Be Either

I am grateful *despite* it, and it makes all the difference

“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” — Melody Beattie

Come on, really?

Gratitude is a highly popular topic all year round but it emerges around Thanksgiving like a geyser, seeping into everything from productivity to parenting, from mental health to mundane life choices. It is undoubtedly a great way to appreciate what we have instead of focusing on what we want to have and don’t.

As a non-American citizen, I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving because it’s not in my culture. We don’t eat turkey, we don’t do family gatherings, we don’t go down on a spiritual journey trying to find the good in our lives here where I live. For us, Thanksgiving doesn’t mean anything but another day of the year and I always had doubts about this as a holiday.

This year, I had an even more than usual controversial feeling about Thanksgiving, as the external circumstances make it really difficult to be grateful for the life we currently have to lead. I read articles about how people are complaining — in the name of Thanksgiving — about not seeing their families, about not being able to stick to their usual…