For much of my life, the concept of gratitude has felt like a well-intentioned holiday guest who overstayed their welcome. A nice enough idea, sure, but one that began to feel suffocating in its endless repetitions and increasingly strange associations. These days, “practicing gratitude” seems to come bundled with jade rollers, superfoods and the kind of journals that include prompts like “What’s your vibration today?” The wellness industry got its hands on gratitude and, inevitably, made it sticky with self-help slogans.

To be fair, though, I was a little suspicious of the concept long before it got Goop-ified. Growing up in a deeply Evangelical church, gratitude was often framed less as a virtue and more as a preemptive apology to an easily angered God. Be thankful, I was told, for your blessings — because if you’re not, He’ll know. It’s hard to feel a warm glow of appreciation when it comes with a side of cosmic guilt and the threat of eternal damnation.

But after my 30th birthday — and surviving a global pandemic in which the sheer magnitude of international loss seemed to magnify personal........

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