Growing up, one of the most irritating ways my grandmother would chastise us when we were sad was saying we should be thankful for what we’ve got. It always felt like a backhanded method to shame and silence, to add guilt to the mix.
But after 2020, I see what she was trying to get at.
It is not that we need to flog ourselves with the guilt of feeling upset because others are much worse off. But that we need to cling to the lifebuoy of truly cherishing what we do have.
Gratitude will save us.
On 31 December 2019, I sat cross-legged on a starry-eyed Iraqi mountainside and like so many dreamed of 2020’s potential.
I was moving to Beirut, a rush of a city I had always wanted to live in. Travel plans were being firmed up. After a decade lost at sea as a correspondent, I was formalising visions of building a forever home.
Silly precious me.
A few months into the pandemic, like thousands of others, my home was blown up in one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in modern history.
Lebanon was ravaged by a bewildering economic crisis that plunged more than half the population into poverty. As the currency tumbled, shopkeepers scratched off the price tags because no one knew what anything was worth anymore.
Like countries across the globe, Lebanon’s borders were closed by Covid-19 and its hospitals overflowed.
And so everyone’s worlds shrunk to the confines of their homes. Families were ripped apart, hearts were shattered. In the middle of so much sadness, it felt hard to breathe.
Then I interviewed a woman who had lost everything in the Beirut blast and who attributed her ability to keep going to gratitude practice: the daily action of focusing on what you’re thankful for – not in smug way or one riddled with guilt.
On the bleakest mornings, it can be as simple as appreciating a flower grown by a treasured houseplant overnight.
It was transformative. Gratitude became a glowing suit of armour against the upside-down world and the toxicity within. It opened up an infectious world of positivity that is always present in tornadoes of sadness.
Everyone without exception has been through so much in 2020 and should commend themselves for getting to this point.
But we can do so much more than just aimlessly “get through this”. We can learn and flourish. And I’ve learned smug-free guiltless gratitude is a hell of a place to start.
Yours
Bel Trew, Middle East correspondent
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