Radical Gratitude: The Kind That Costs You Something
Thanksgiving arrives like clockwork, wrapped in ritual and softness.
We gather around tables, pass bowls, rehearse a script we all know by heart. We perform gratitude the way we perform small talk — politely, predictably, safely – a polite ritual we participate in so we don’t disrupt the mood. We say the words — “I’m grateful for my family, my friends, my health, my work” — not because they are untrue, but because they are safe.
Expected.
Socially acceptable.
The older I get, the more hollow it all feels. Not because gratitude is meaningless, but because we’ve turned it into decoration.
A performance.
A ritual of comfort that avoids the truths that actually shape us.
I’ve started to wonder: What if our gratitude isn’t deep at all? What if it’s choreography — a socially sanctioned way to avoid the truths we don’t want to confront?
We say the right words because they signal stability.
Because they confirm our identity.
Because they fit the script.
Real gratitude is rarely warm.
Real gratitude is rarely easy.
Real gratitude is rarely something you can say out loud.
The kind of gratitude that changes you — the kind that grows you — is almost always the kind you’d rather avoid.
It’s the gratitude rooted in pain, humility, reckoning, responsibility, and the parts of your story that refuse to stay buried.
The Shadows We Hide From
I won’t detail my own shadows here — not because I’m hiding it, but because its specifics are irrelevant. You have your own version. Everyone does.
For me, it was a truth, a realization that hit me in the gut.
A truth about how narratives form in the space between two homes, two stories, and two versions of the past — and how devastating it is when the version of you that reaches your children isn’t the one you’ve lived.
A truth that made me confront the gap between intention and impact — the gap we spend our entire lives pretending doesn’t exist.
For you, it might be something else entirely:
- A relationship you’ve neglected.
- A failure you’ve minimized.
- A wound you’ve avoided.
- A mistake you’ve rehearsed excuses for.
- An identity you’ve clung to long after it stopped being true.
We all have that one truth — the one we don’t talk about, the one we don’t put on our gratitude lists, the one that sits in the corner of our lives waiting for us to finally look at it.
And maybe this is the part we don’t talk about often enough — what these truths could mean for the next generation quietly watching us. If there’s anything I hope young people learn sooner than we did, it’s that gratitude is not a script, but a way of seeing. Seeing themselves clearly. Seeing others with compassion. Seeing the difference between the story they’ve inherited and the truth they must discover for themselves. And just as importantly, seeing their place in a world that feels colder, faster, and more unequal by the day.
Gratitude should widen their awareness — help them recognize not just what they have, but what that “having” demands of them. Responsibility. Humility. Courage. A sense of duty to something larger than their own comfort. If we can model that — not through perfection, but through honesty — then maybe they’ll grow into adults who understand that gratitude is not just appreciation, but accountability.
This year, that truth became my teacher. And strangely — painfully — I am grateful for it.
Not grateful in the holiday sense.
Not grateful in the Instagram sense.
Not grateful in the “it made me stronger” cliché.
Grateful because this year forced me into a reality I never imagined — one where loving my children meant stepping back, not leaning in.
Grateful because I had to accept that sometimes the most responsible form of love is giving space, even when every part of you wants to close the distance.
Grateful because I learned that “letting go” is not giving up — it’s choosing not to add to a pain they didn’t ask for.
Grateful because this season demanded a different kind of strength from me — quiet, disciplined, painful, and patient — instead of the kind of fatherhood I always assumed I’d get to live.
Most people never reach this kind of gratitude because they never reach this kind of truth.
Why? Because the truth that costs you is the one you run from. And the truth you run from is the one that frees you.
We would rather list blessings than confront shadows.
We would rather celebrate the good than sit with the real.
We would rather preserve identity than pursue growth.
But the life you want is always on the other side of the truth you’re avoiding.
And that’s the truth I’m arriving at this Thanksgiving with — not through comfort, but through rupture.
You cannot grow if you only accept the versions of yourself that make you feel good.
You cannot evolve if you only practice gratitude for the things that cost you nothing.
You cannot become whole if you refuse to examine the fractures.
So instead of offering a gratitude list this year, I want to offer a practice — not preachy, not prescriptive, just a set of invitations drawn from the hardest work I’ve done in years.
A Practice for Gratitude With Weight
1. Name the truth you’ve been avoiding.
Everyone has one. It’s the thing you don’t want to admit, the conversation you keep postponing, the memory you rewrite, the version of yourself you refuse to see.
Naming it is brutal.
But naming it is liberation.
2. Notice the identity you’re protecting.
We cling to the stories we tell about ourselves — especially the flattering ones.
Letting go of those stories feels like death, because identity is survival.
But growth demands honesty.
And honesty demands risking who you think you are.
3. Separate what you meant from what someone else experienced.
This is the hardest work of all. It’s where most people stop.
But intention is not the measure of truth. Impact is.
And gratitude begins where defensiveness ends.
4. Sit with the discomfort without escaping into justification.
Don’t explain.
Don’t rewrite.
Don’t minimize
.Just sit with it.
Silence is where the truth settles.
Stillness is where the truth transforms.
5. Make a private commitment to become someone better.
Not for applause.
Not for forgiveness.
Not for reconciliation.
Just for the quiet dignity of living with integrity.
Some growth must happen without witnesses.
Some rebuilding must happen without guarantees.
6. And finally: Give thanks for the truth, not the performance.
Anyone can list blessings.
Anyone can post gratitude.
Anyone can perform happiness.
But giving thanks for the truth — especially the inconvenient truth — is the beginning of actual change.
Why am I saying this?
Because the performative gratitude we engage in every Thanksgiving gives us the illusion of reflection without requiring the substance of it.
We say “I’m grateful” as if it’s an endpoint.
But real gratitude is a doorway.
It leads somewhere.
It asks something.
It changes us.
And when we dare to step through that doorway — when we face the shadow instead of the script — something shifts.
We begin to see ourselves clearly.
We begin to take responsibility quietly.
We begin to grow without needing to be seen growing.
We begin to understand what actually matters, beneath the rituals and routines that distract us.
This year, I’m grateful for the truth that reshaped me.
And for the courage to keep reshaping myself even without an audience.
If you’re reading this, here’s the invitation:
Give thanks for what is honest, not what is easy.
Give thanks for the truth, not the performance.
Give thanks for the shadow that shows you who you must become.
Because the gratitude that matters is not the gratitude you post.
It’s the gratitude you practice — quietly, painfully, privately, until it becomes the person you are.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Ex Cogitatione, Progressus
Girish
