Why "Gratitude" Works (Sort Of)

For the past 15 years I’ve heard success gurus scream their heads off about practicing gratitude.

You need to list out things you’re thankful for.

You need to designated part of your morning routine to thinking about everything you’re grateful for.

And so on.

The problem is that none of these bastards ever explained why this works or why it’s worth doing at all.

If you’re going to tell me I need to spend 5-10 minutes a day for the rest of my life doing something, then you’d better damn well give me the specific reasons why this technique will help me and give me some real scientific backing behind your advice.

Otherwise, fuck off.

This is why doing things like setting goals, planning your quarter, and visualizing your goals are things I’ve embraced; I know there is real data that shows this stuff works, and I’ve read plenty of books that showed scientific data that explained why these things work.

Yet, for gratitude, for some reason, this is never explained. I had to do a mountain of deep digging research to discover if this technique actually worked, and why.

Here’s what I came up with. It actually does work, at least somewhat. For two reasons.

The first reason is that you can’t feel mad, sad, jealous, anxious, or scared at the same time you feel deeply grateful for something.

Try it yourself.

Next time you feel any strong negative emotions, pause for a minute and click your brain over to feeling grateful about something you are deeply thankful for.

I don’t mean “I feel grateful for the wind on my face” bullshit where you’re trying to reach for something. I mean something you are really and truly thankful for, even if it’s something you’ve taken for granted (Example: “I’m thankful I was born and raised in the Western world before Western collapse really began instead of being born in North Korea or during the Black Plague.”)

You’ll find your negative emotions either vanish completely or reduce by at least 80%. You really will feel happier.

The second reason is that when you focus on things you have in your life that you’re thankful for, usually you’ll discover that you did that. If you’re thankful for your income, your cute girlfriend, or that you moved to Paraguay, you’ll see that these things were things you created yourself.

When you feel this, you suddenly start feeling more capable and competent.

When you feel more capable and competent, you start feeling more confident.

When you feel more confident, you are more likely to take action on your goals and you’re more likely to succeed in them.

Contrast this to most men in the modern collapsing era who spend most of their lives going around thinking things like, “I’m not good at anything,” and “Everything sucks.” These guys are doomed to live horrible lives. (And in my view, they deserve it. This is why I’ve said from day one that Alpha Male 2.0 is only for 10% of men. Women and 90% of men reject long-term happiness.)

So yes, gratitude does actually help. I’m not saying you need to have a regular routine for it (unless you want one), but developing the habit of feeling grateful for the things you already have is definitely worth doing.