A Last-Minute Change to "The Gratitude Goggles"

In the first draft of "The Gratitude Goggles," I had included a vital piece that somehow got lost after several rounds of editing. I didn’t realize how essential this piece was until one week before publication, and I had to work quickly and coordinate with the editor and designer to bring that piece back before publication. I want to tell you a little more about this and why it was so important for me to bring it back into the story.

The week of Thanksgiving, we were visiting family in the Northeast. During lunch one day, Olivia asked her uncle (my brother-in-law) what he is grateful for. His response? “Family.” Then she asked him an important follow-up question: “Who are you grateful to?” He stalled and confessed, “Wow, no one has asked me that!” After thinking for a few seconds, his face got bright, and with a wide smile, he responded, “Your aunt Susie, she has helped me so much throughout my life.” She wasn’t even in the room; this was pure and sincere gratitude.

His reaction made me go back to my manuscript. Even though I often ask my daughter to think about who she is grateful to, not only what she is grateful for, this piece had not made it into my final draft. How had I missed that? One might think it’s not as important. After all, if you are grateful to someone it is because they did something that you are grateful for, so there is not a big difference. However, both questions really invite a different type of analysis, and both are very important in our practice of gratitude.

In the book "Active Hope," Joanna Macy explains, "There are two sides to gratitude: the first is appreciation, when you are valuing something that has happened, and the second is attribution, when you are recognizing the role of someone or something else in bringing it about..." Macy also discusses why thinking about who we are grateful to, not only what we are grateful for, is so important: "Gratitude feeds trust because it helps us acknowledge the times we have been able to count on one another. Not surprisingly, research shows we are more likely to help those we feel grateful to, leading to a positive spiral of helping, gratitude, trust, and cooperation."

So here is the last-minute change to the book:

I hope this helps you and your family when you reflect on its message. Who are you grateful to? Comment below!