How I Learned to Embrace the Suck

and avoid toxic positivity

Last year, my eldest brother (above right) hosted Thanksgiving dinner in The City of Angels. It was the first Farago family get-together since we spread my Mother’s ashes on the Sakonnet River.

Despite dropping helpful hints about the possibility of a re-constituted Farago fandango…

* crickets chirping *

No surprise there. My brothers have about as much interest in my life as The New York Post’s astrologer. My reaction? How do I put this? They can…

FOAD

You’d be forgiven for considering the acrimonious acronym an excellent example of toxic negativity. An angry thought that prevents me from achieving the sexagenarian serenity I so richly deserve.

According to common wisdom, I should turn the other cheek and be grateful for the fraternal cold shoulder.

I should focus my mind on the foursome I’m assembling in Knoxville for “Friendsgiving.” A convivial congregation that wouldn’t have occurred if my brothers had invited me and mine to break bread in LA.

Fair enough? Not according Wall Street Journal columnist Elizabeth Bernstein.

The Gratitude Gestalt

Ms. Bernstein begins her most recent polemic – The Case for Being Ungrateful – by pointing out that there’s a whole industry counseling people to counter anger, disappointment and frustration with the attitude of gratitude.

Publishers, coaches, influencers and retail companies — not to mention actual therapists (and our moms!) — all admonish us to “be grateful.” We can buy gratitude journals, listen to gratitude meditations and wear gratitude sweaters.

Recently at a home-goods store, I heard a woman shopping nearby groan. “Even the plates are scolding me,” she told her friend. What was written on the platter she was holding? You guessed it.

That groaning friend/scolding plate quote is, as the Brits say, too cute by half. But good on Ms. Bernstein for not buying into the prevailing gratitude gestalt.

In fact, her pay-walled rant rages against the Pollyannas proselytizing pure positivity. Ms. Bernstein has not one but two names for this psychological doom loop.

Performative gratitude — compelling ourselves to be grateful when we’re not—is a form of toxic positivity.

The energy we expend trying to avoid the uncomfortable feeling will, ironically, keep us focused on the problem.

Then we feel guilty because we failed to be grateful. 

Guilt by Association

Clocking Ms. Bernstein’s last name and maternal kvetch, it’s safe to assume she’s Jewish. If so, she doesn’t need much of a reason – make that another reason to feel guilty.

That said, Ms. Bernstein is right to insist we need an alternative to the
unrelenting emphasis on gratitude. Something between Eeyore and Annie “The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow” Barkley.

The WSJ pundit found it in The Land Down Under.

“There is a difference between a positive mindset and gratitude.,” Sydney psychotherapist Sara Kuburic told the jobbing journo cum scuba diver. “You can choose to make the best of a bad situation without forcing yourself to be grateful for it.”

Embrace the Suck

True that! Making the best of, best of, best of, a bad situation beats the shit out of trying to be grateful for all the crap we humans constantly endure.

Just ask America’s Special Forces, combat-hardened souls who live by the motto “Embrace the Suck.”

It’s not a simple instruction to “quit your bitching,” although that’s part of it. It’s a reminder to “quit your bitching and get on with it.” Stay mission focused!

For those of us who aren’t armed to the teeth courtesy Uncle Sam, mission focus doesn’t mean meet interesting people and kill them. Our mission? Happiness.

“Embrace the suck” urges us to look for something that will make us happy when things go tits up (a.k.a., seriously sideways). No matter how great the suckage.

Bottom line: forget gratitude, unless it’s for something or someone that’s had a genuinely positive impact on your life. But always look on the..

I learned this lesson on my European motorcycle tour, way back in ‘85.

I rocked-up to a lonely campground in-the-middle-of-nowhere France. Night was closing in. I was tired, cold, wet and hungry. Piling into my rain-soaked tent, I faced a long miserable night.

Instead of surrendering to the suck, I went for a walk. And there she was on a lonely muddy road, walking towards me in the dark: a raven-haired vision of Gallic beauty.

I won’t repeat the soldiers’ motto to tell you how that went. Let’s just say I deployed my high school French to great effect.

By the same token, let’s just say my Thanksgiving dinner with Ami has my full attention. And for that…

May the Lord Make Me Truly Grateful

Ms. Bernstein may not agree, but it is possible to live in a state of permanent gratitude. If you believe everything happens for a reason. A good reason. A godly reason. Provided by a loving God.

Not it. But I am down with the philosophy espoused by the devout French artist Henri Matisse (above): Il y a des fleurs partout pour qui veut bien les voir. There are flowers everywhere for those who want to see them.

Too bad I’m color blind.