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I Said “This Thanksgiving, Forget Gratitude.” Then My Brother-in-Law Pushed Back.
When I wrote “This Thanksgiving, Forget Gratitude. Try Appreciation,” I meant it.
I had watched someone I love suffer through multiple life-threatening diagnoses. Well-meaning people kept telling me to “practice gratitude,” and it felt like being asked to smile while drowning. So I made my case: appreciation was better. It didn’t require you to feel blessed by your circumstances. It simply asked you to notice what still mattered.
The essay resonated. People wrote to tell me it gave them permission to stop performing gratitude when life was hard.
Then my brother-in-law pushed back.
My brother-in-law is a deeply religious and brilliant man—the kind of person whose faith is lived daily through practice. He sent me a thoughtful email comparing gratitude and appreciation to diabetes treatment: gratitude is the basal insulin, administered constantly to maintain a steady baseline. Appreciation is the bolus—a surge you need in moments of crisis.
In Jewish thought, he explained, gratitude stems from recognizing that existence itself is an unearned gift. The daily mitzvot—blessings before and after eating, even after using the restroom—exercise the “gratitude muscle” constantly.
“The basal must be administered daily, in good times as well as bad,” he wrote. “Gratitude needs regular practice so that, when we most need strength, it’s already within us.”
His message was clear: Gratitude should be the foundation. Appreciation was the emergency tool.
And his email made me pause.
In pushing back against forced gratitude, had I thrown out something valuable?
What We Both Got Wrong
My brother-in-law was right: I had undervalued gratitude. In my urgency to protect people who were suffering—people for whom forced gratitude felt cruel—I had overcorrected. I had dismissed the profound power of a daily gratitude practice.
But I think we were both missing something.
Appreciation isn’t just a bolus—an emergency intervention for when gratitude fails. It’s its own foundational practice, equally worthy of daily cultivation.
The real problem wasn’t that one of us was right and the other wrong.
The real problem was that we were both trapped in either/or thinking.
Which is ironic, because an appreciative perspective is the opposite—it holds space for the whole picture.
We don’t need to choose between gratitude and appreciation.
We need both.
In psychological research, appreciation is the broader umbrella—a way of noticing meaning, value, and presence—and gratitude is one of its components. In most spiritual traditions, gratitude plays a much larger, foundational role. Both frameworks are true within their own worlds.
Here’s what I’ve come to understand: gratitude and appreciation serve different, equally essential functions in building a meaningful life.
Gratitude and Appreciation Do Different Work
Gratitude cultivates humility. It reminds us we are recipients of unearned gifts—our very existence, the people who love us, the breath in our lungs. It connects us to something larger than our own effort. It acknowledges that life is not solely self-made.
Appreciation cultivates presence. It widens the frame. It trains us to notice what has value and meaning right now—not because we earned it or should feel blessed by it, but because it is here and it matters. Appreciation grounds us in reality as it is: not just the hard parts, not just the good parts, but the whole landscape.
Two Practices, Not a Hierarchy
During those brutal months when there was so much uncertainty with my loved one’s health, I often couldn’t access gratitude. The hospital waiting rooms, the fear, the helplessness—I didn’t feel held. I felt unmoored.
But I could appreciate:
>> The warmth of a hand holding mine in the waiting room
>> The competence in a doctor’s voice during a difficult conversation
>> The way time slowed down during a quiet moment together
These small noticings became lifelines.
Here’s what I’ve learned:
Appreciation isn’t just for emergencies.
It’s a practice I needed before the crisis, during the crisis, and long after. It’s how I stay present to my life as it actually is—not just the hard parts, not just the good parts, but all of it.
And gratitude?
My brother-in-law was right that I need it too. Not as a performance. Not as toxic positivity. But as a daily reminder that I’m connected to something larger than my own story.
On the good days—and there are many good days now—I feel both.
I appreciate my loved one’s twinkling eyes and their laughter in the next room. And I’m grateful they are here, that we got more time, that modern medicine exists.
Even on hard days, I can practice both.
I may not feel grateful for the situation itself, but I can still be grateful for my sister who showed up. And even if I don’t feel blessed, I can appreciate that I’m here, that breathing helps, and that I am capable of noticing what matters.
Here are two simple ways to make both part of your daily life:
Gratitude Practice: When Your Feet Hit the Floor
Every morning, before your mind races ahead to the day, pause at the edge of your bed. Sit tall, take a deep breath. Feel your feet on the floor.
Ask yourself: What am I grateful for today?
It might be something big—your health, your family.
It might be something small—hot water, quiet, coffee.
Some days nothing will come, and that’s okay. Asking is the practice.
Appreciation Practice: On the Toilet
I keep mine radically simple.
Every day, when I first sit on the toilet, I sit tall, take a deep breath, and notice five things.
Five things I have, or five specific reasons why I appreciate someone or something in my life. I often pick people or things I am struggling with—it is powerful!
No journal. No candles.
Just a moment of noticing what’s present and what matters.
Five is enough to widen your lens. Not enough to overwhelm it.
Why Both Matter
Gratitude humbles us and reminds us we are held.
Appreciation grounds us and reminds us we are here.
Together, they create something larger than either practice alone: a way of moving through life that is both connected and present, both humble and grounded.
My brother-in-law’s email gave me a gift. It helped me see that in trying to rescue people from forced gratitude, I had thrown out something precious. Gratitude has been cultivated in so many traditions for thousands of years for good reason. It works.
But my lived experience taught me something too: appreciation is equally powerful, equally foundational, equally worth practicing daily.
We don’t have to choose.
We get to hold both.
This Thanksgiving
This Thanksgiving, you might offer yourself (and everyone at the table) two invitations instead of one.
First, a moment for gratitude, if it arises naturally. And second, a moment for appreciation, because appreciation never asks you to feel anything other than what is already true.
Gratitude opens the heart when it can. Appreciation opens the eyes when it must.
Together, they offer us both: the sense of being held, and the presence of being here.
~
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