What’s Gratitude Got To With It?
I have found through experience and longevity that life is a game that does not run on gratitude. A game is anything with rules and a goal, so this includes everything from business to romantic encounters. Generally everything we do in life. Gratitude is not character building as presumed and is at its worst a manipulative platitude. It is too much like a fad, an object or phenomenon that has short-lived but intense popularity. A definition of gratitude suggests it is the state or quality of being grateful or thankful; a warm and friendly feeling in response to favours received. But when a person is no longer able to either benefit or harm someone else one becomes irrelevant. Frankly, if you cannot help or hinder someone you are a nonentity in that other person’s life, and this extends to groups. It does not matter even if you have a long association together because as soon as you remove the potential for future help or future hindrance you can no longer expect to influence other people’s behaviour. This is hard news for many to understand. So, this essay will argue that the idea one is owed something for past actions and especially something that has not been explicitly and mutually negotiated is rooted in an irrational trust of fairness.
Frankly, many ideas may only exist in a mind that does not question or understand the notion of power between people. When someone begins with the words, ‘After everything I’ve done, after everything I’ve done for you’. Someone is certainly going to lament the state of the world, one can go on angry tirades about how things should be. But this is the way the game of life is played, and it does not run on gratitude because you have already been paid for your past service, your past attendance, and your past grovelling at the feet of more powerful people. After everything one has done for this or that company and by extension association, club, relationship, or union, this is how one is repaid now by being excluded, passed over, fired, or rejected . In all cases, it should be clear that the entire time that one was sacrificing and bleeding for the individual or company in question, one was paid in some way. Perhaps there were perks and privileges associated with the position. Perhaps just being there provided access to power-plays by association. If one is providing a service then one’s responsibilities and compensation were what one explicitly and mutually negotiated in a contract with an employer, a lover, or myriad associates and that was what kept one integral and bonded. However, if one stopped working or removed one’s involvement then receiving that entitled compensation would have stopped. Expecting anything else beyond your mutually negotiated compensation existed only in one’s mind and some may have delusions of their relevance or self-importance.
Perhaps you were compensated for your time and endurance, but you remain bitter and hurt regardless of these facts and ability to let the past be. More likely it means that you agreed to something that you did not want to do or perhaps did not understand all the facts out of the hope that some future benefit might accrue to you. This is particularly true for those who have no vision or adaptable life plans. Sadly, many hang onto continued loyalty which is myopic and does not let people live their lives. Loyalty is extraordinarily rare. Most human relationships are not governed by loyalty, or fairness, or gratitude, or kindness, or any other virtue, or ideal, instead they are governed by power which is the ability to either give people what they need or withhold from people what they hoped for. Plainly, it is the ability to implement benefit or damage and when you can no longer help or harm someone else you have no power in the relationship and so you surrender your only real chance of ever getting what you want. It is the battleground of human existence. Fairness has nothing to do with it.
Again in broken friendships, exhausted romantic relationships, and old business deals,
‘. . . after everything I’ve done for you,’ is the rallying cry of frustrated and resentful people the world over. However like in business, this belief is irrational because you have already been paid for everything that you have done. In reality no one is so selflessly devoted to a company that they will keep showing up for work if the pay cheques stop. In unpaid work, such as in volunteering, there are very few people who will remain loyal to this relationship in which the transmission of benefit has long since ceased. For example, as part of a powerful committee, or circle of influential cohorts working for a cause which may have been achieved or evolved past the initial instigation. Those who choose to remain so may find themselves overwhelmed by voluntary work which creates resentment. People get something different out of every relationship, but it commonly includes some combination of things like companionship, sexual attention, excitement, energy, emotional support, distraction, a remedy from loneliness, income, skills, and much more—the stuff of life.
However importantly, at a very personal level, you were present in a person’s life and were able to accompany them through time for a while. You were paid with some or all those things that brought you into the relationship. So adopting a resentful or martyring attitude because you will not receive further benefit is unmindful and childish. As soon as a benefit has been received, banked, and redirected it is dead. It is in the past and it cannot influence future action. Debt irrespective of whether it is monetary debt or emotional debt only has power to influence people because of the possibility of future harm associated with defaulting on repayment. It is a carrot and the stick approach. Maybe a lowering of your credit score or it can mean wanting to spend less time with you because they are averse to the harm they could experience in the future if the debt were not repaid. Living in someone’s debt is never a good basis for friendship. Some deluded people will try to reverse engineer gratitude to demand lifelong loyalty without constant payment, but the past cannot be revived. As well, emotional blackmail is sinister, the worst kind of demand for gratitude.
People who understand power tend to mystify it behind a veneer of an idealist, hence the force of Communism or Capitalism, royalty, or religion. They sugar coat bitter medicine to save face when responding to its influences by mystifying power. Certain ideals are given the status of plausible deniability which allows power to remain hidden in plain sight. For example, soldiers may hold an indefensible position in combat as the commitment to duty is a ploy against soldiers facing the threat of being court-martialed and perhaps executed. A soldier’s honour to uphold his reputation and family can in some small measure reduce the likelihood that harm might befall those he cares about because of his sacrifice then holding the line becomes a better option.
Although this might anger some people because the ideals of patriotism and blind duty like all cherished ideals make life more functional by diminishing the relentless demands of power. Such a severe punishment surely should not be necessary, however by dispensing with the court-martial a lot more desertion is likely. Authoritarian regimes use the death sentence to keep soldiers in war zones. As many people will not retain a relationship on the grounds of past benefits, they might if they stand to benefit in the future, even if it a promise of rewards from winning the war. Blind loyalty to ruthless leadership is a balance between a promise of reward and present payment of service. Any game including battle zone scenarios played do not run on gratitude.
So, gratitude is an overstated idea taking one’s thanks into magical thinking. Civil society may aim for fair justice and equality. But it is based on a contract between people to honour laws and regulations to uphold sustainable standards; there are payments made. Bad behaviour begets punishment. Nevertheless, good things do not always happen to good people, while bad things do not always happen to bad people. Sometimes good things do happen to good people, while bad things do happen to bad people. There is no rhyme or reason to call fairness in this cosmos. We never get what we deserve. Clinging to family members to push back isolation only builds resentment as adult children feel infantilized or filial ties breakdown under unreal expectations of lifelong devotion, no one is growing up. Similarly with people who expect unreasonable payback for their attention.
People in the public gaze involved in sports or the arts often attract those who believe purchasing artwork, merchandising paraphernalia, or dotingly following their careers would give them access to the personal lives of their targets. When rebutted they become hostile, more invasive, and vengeful to a ridiculous point. Gratitude is a worthless attribute in human relationships when there is no commonsense. One should be appreciative for good things done; however some form of payment preceded this. People by their very existence render service to a wider society through taxes, volunteerism, hard work, goods, and services proffered, and accepting the requirements of law and order. Doing such things may be no guarantee of carrots, but in a reasonably civil society rewards like pensions, medical care, basic education, and general care in the community are payment for sensible behaviour.
To allow the world to evolve may mean a level of civil disobedience, for example, the fight against Apartheid and wider racism or the stand against an invading ideology. The stick will be applied to those that make a stand, however the carrot reward is the future payback. We are thankful for the good fight, but to expect continuing bull-headed gratitude will undermine further progress. Politics can become wilful and divide people further demanding loyalty to unyielding principles. We appreciate good governance but recognize it is precarious in many places which underlines the failure of fairness across human affairs. Ongoing research suggest many human civilizations have existed and disappeared over several-thousand years. Also considering the changing boundaries of countries through war, past and present, humankind cannot depend upon inalienable fairness. The same may be suggested for all human relationships.
Platitudes do not heal emotional wounds associated with profound loss. Suggesting gratitude as a balm may hinder psychological healing as those affected may feel guilty about their feelings. Understanding the basic truth of give and take described as reward and threat, payment and withholding, benefit and harm, and other dual associations along these lines presents a blunt, but honest appraisal of human relationships. There is appreciation for the skills and observations of a doctor in treating a serious disease, but wanting to relive the care and attention undermines that the relationship was based on following through on medical procedures, a contract between client and health provider. Gratitude is not an ideal or worthwhile value on its own, it simply is not a thing. Certainly, no one and by extension any group should be obliged to anyone or others when past contracts have been fulfilled; the past has surrendered its power.
