“Gratitude, being nearly the greatest of human duties, is also nearly the most difficult.”  ¹

G.K. Chesterton penned these words over 90 years ago. His pithy remark invites debate. Is gratitude a duty? If it is, it goes against the notion many of us have about gratitude being something fuzzy and spontaneous.

Gratitude defies an easy label: is it an emotion, a social behavior, a personality trait, a coping mechanism, or something else? Just as with the word “happiness” we talk past each other because we’re using different definitions. All of us have felt grateful, at least briefly, when we’ve experienced joy upon seeing an old friend again, or relief that there’s still plenty of fennel at the grocery store during a last-minute holiday run – but feelings are fleeting.

Chesterton suggests that gratitude is something deeper, something we can cultivate, and I’m inclined to agree.

We Have a Duty to Be Grateful

Chesterton is not the first person to describe gratitude as a duty. In His “Metaphysics of Morals”, Kant declares:

“Gratitude is a duty. It is not merely a prudential maxim of encouraging the other to show me further beneficence by acknowledging my obligation to him for a favor he has done, for I would then be using my acknowledgment merely as a means to my further purpose.” ²

In other words, true gratitude is not tit-for-tat; we should view gratitude as an end in itself if we’re to help make the world a better place. Gratitude is social glue: if everyone expresses goodwill and appreciation toward everyone else we will (theoretically) live in a harmonious, high-functioning society. This is a very meta way of looking at gratitude, though. It’s profound but not personal. I don’t find it the most exciting or inspiring rationale for being grateful, and I’m guessing you don’t, either.

For gratitude to really work, it must make us happy; and science shows us that it does, over and over. Those who count their blessings and record in their journals things they’re grateful for experience an increased sense of satisfaction and well-being. ³ Not only that but gratitude and life satisfaction, in general, seem to have a mutually reinforcing relationship that’s been described as “a circle of virtue” ⁴ and a “spiral of human flourishing.” ⁵ No wonder Cicero described gratitude as “the mother of all other remaining virtues.”

Gratitude seems to almost be a panacea that helps us and the rest of society flourish. Categorizing it as a duty makes it more urgent, instead of the usual platitudinous self-improvement advice we’re used to hearing. There’s just one problem: gratitude doesn’t come easily. We roll our eyes whenever we’re advised to list things we’re grateful for. Chesterton isn’t wrong when he calls it a “difficulty.” Why is this?

Maybe like the archetypal Old Testament story about Moses and the serpent on the staff, people distrust simple solutions. ⁶ Writing down ten things that are good in your life is almost a guaranteed way to feel slightly better than you did ten minutes ago, but it seems trite and slick. We prefer solutions that are profound, or at least, not obvious. Gratitude is also difficult in that it requires not doing, something that can be hard for anyone ambitious or anxious (and that’s a lot of us).

I suspect the biggest reason goes deeper yet. Our deeply rooted evolutionary instincts tell us to not rest, to not be satisfied otherwise we risk succumbing to hunger or more immediate danger. Humans dominate the world because of their endless drive to improve and innovate. Gratitude is a nice sentiment, but how useful is it?

The Balance Between Gratitude and Progress

Like its counterpart, contentment, gratitude has the potential to be a double-edged sword. The strongest argument against gratitude is that it keeps us complacent with a broken and hurting reality. What if counting our blessings is making us oblivious to endangered animals, to victims of warfare, to injustices both large and small in the world and in our communities?

If our gratitude eclipses all thoughts of “but this could be better,” we’ll lack the momentum to push ourselves to reach deeper wells of potential within us. Gratitude can act as a crutch to keep us in a difficult situation that we needn’t be in. Is the wife in a listless marriage, for example, content or merely resigned to her situation when she focuses on all the positives in her life to help her cope with the things that are missing? Gratitude, like most virtues, becomes corrupted if we apply it without a broader perspective.

Gratitude and a desire for progress needn’t be at odds, either. We can be grateful for the things that are going right while setting our sights on what can be better – and letting wisdom guide us as to what issues are most worth our time and struggle. Still, in a world that seems to be getting worse in so many ways despite the progress we’ve made so far, a happy and grateful attitude strikes some as naive or even offensive.

If the idea of “always being grateful” makes you hesitate because of all the failings in the world, think of gratitude not as a way to ignore the wrongs surrounding you, but as a shot in the arm to have the energy to right those wrongs.

I find this highly unfortunate. There is no contradiction between being grateful for good things and being resolved to fix or improve the things that aren’t good. If anything, gratitude will help us stay in whatever fight we’re in much longer than dissatisfaction alone. If the idea of “always being grateful” makes you hesitate because of all the failings in the world, think of gratitude not as a way to ignore the wrongs surrounding you, but as a shot in the arm to have the energy to right those wrongs.

More than two millennia ago Epicurus warned, “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” His admonition is not that we shouldn’t want more, but that we take care to appreciate what we have even when pursuing new things. Life is overwhelming if we only focus on what is lacking. Gratitude not only helps us be better world citizens, as Kant suggests — it takes the sting out of our daily struggles.

Gratitude may indeed be a difficulty, especially if we’re not used to practicing it at first, but life in the long run is far more difficult without it.

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1. From his essay, “Christmas and Salesmanship.”
2. Kant, I. (1996). The metaphysics of morals (M. Gregor, Ed. & Trans.). Cambridge University Press.
3. Emmons, R. A., & McCullough, M. E. (2003). Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(2), 377–389. Read here.
4. Unanue, W., Mella, M. E. G., Cortez, D. A., Bravo, D., Araya-Véliz, C., Unanue, J., & Van den Broeck, A. (2019). The reciprocal relationship between gratitude and life satisfaction: Evidence from two longitudinal field studies. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, Article 2480. Read here.
5. Templeton Foundation. (2018). Gratitude: A white paper. John Templeton Foundation. Read here.
6. In the Book of Numbers, the people of Israel experience a plague of poisonous serpents. In response, the Lord instructs Moses to create a serpent out of bronze and place it on a staff. Anyone who looked at the bronze serpent was healed; despite these simple instructions, a lot of individuals chose not to look and perished as a result.