The Compassionate Instinct

For my gratitude letter, I decided to write one to my grandmother back in New York for her 84th birthday. It took me three weeks to build up the emotional energy to do it (something about putting all that emotion down on paper made me procrastinate), and, as expected, as soon as I started writing, I began to cry. “I remember you singing me to sleep when I was little,” I wrote. “And helping me with my math homework and quizzing me on spelling while I tried to do handstands in the living room, and picking me up from the school bus, and coming into school for grandparents’ day—I was always so proud to have you there.” I told her how lucky I felt to have her in my life, how much I respected her for having raised my mother on her own, and how much it meant to me that we were so close. By the time I finished writing the letter, I was exhausted—and when I called to read it to her (since she lives across the country, I couldn’t do it in person), we both ended up in tears.

NEGATIVITY BIAS

Halfway through my experiment, I was running into problems. I had been trying to appreciate happy moments in my life, but that didn’t stop me from getting into a verbal fight with a mechanic, who became so angry that he threatened to have me arrested. I had delivered my gratitude letter to my grandmother, which did make us both happy, but also made her think I was writing her eulogy; she told me, pointedly, that she wasn’t planning to die yet. And when I tried to savor a beautiful afternoon by taking a hike along the coast with my boyfriend, we got poison oak.

What’s more, I noticed that when I was particularly stressed or angry or feeling down, I didn’t want to reflect on things I was happy or grateful for. During those moments, thinking about reasons my life was good just made me more anxious.

I decided to call Julie Norem, professor and chair of the psychology department at Wellesley College, for reassurance. She told me my reaction made sense.

“If you’re trying to be grateful all the time but are in a really sucky situation,” she said, “then you set yourself up for feeling like things are even worse than they were before because you didn’t get cured by this gratitude thing that was supposed to make you happy.”

Granted, Norem has her biases. She’s the author of a book called The Positive Power of Negative Thinking and believes that for some people, whom she calls defensive pessimists, trying to be constantly positive and optimistic can lead to more stress. But apparently, I’m biased, too, because as I read through her Web site, I could feel myself identifying with it.

“Defensive pessimists lower their expectations to help prepare themselves for the worst,” says her Web site. “Then they mentally play through all the bad things that can happen. Though it sounds like it might be depressing, defensive pessimism actually helps anxious people focus away from their emotions so they can plan and act effectively.”

Intrigued, I took the quiz on Norem’s Web site titled “Are you a defensive pessimist?” and scored exactly in the middle between optimism and defensive pessimism—which makes sense, given the fact that I do try to be positive about things, but use negativity to cope. It goes along with a saying I learned from my grandmother: “Hope for the best; expect the worst.”

Perhaps ironically, thinking about pessimism made me feel better, especially when University of Michigan psychologist Christopher Peterson admitted to me that even positive psychologists like himself are not always brimming with joy. “I’m not a Pollyanna,” he said when I called to ask how positive psychology had affected his life. “And obviously, someone who’s unrelentingly cheerful can be a pain in the ass.”

HAPPY MEAL

But how about unrelenting gratitude? To celebrate finishing my experiment—not to mention filling up my journal—I took my boyfriend out for dinner at a restaurant here in Berkeley called Café Gratitude. It’s a place that is anathema to my cynical New York roots: cheery waitresses who call everyone “darling,” posters on the walls that ask questions like, “Can you surrender to how beautiful you are?” and, worst of all, a menu of organic, vegan dishes, all named with life-affirming sentences. For example, saying to your server, “I am fabulous” means that you would like some lasagna. “I am fun” indicates that you want some toast. Unfortunately, there is no organic, vegan interpretation of “I am about to vomit.”

My boyfriend and I settled on being generous, fulfilled, and accepting (guacamole, a large café salad, and a bowl of rice), and in honor of my experiment, I insisted on ordering the “I am thankful” (Thai coconut soup, served cold). To offset the restaurant’s unrelenting cheer, we both ordered alcohol (luckily, even in Café Gratitude, a beer is just a beer).