Count your curses

Chris and I have a dear friend who is prone to severe depression.  More than anyone I know, I think she would rather "count her curses" rather than "count her blessings".  If she would only stop focusing on what is less than perfect about her mom, her step dad, her job, her friends, her apartment, etc., I think she could be a happy person.  She's beautiful, healthy, young, smart, and charming when she's not in a deep funk.  I've told her she has a smile like Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman", that flashes when you least expect it and makes lights up a whole room.

But she latches on to anything that is less than perfect in her life and broods about it.  She counts her curses.  "This sucks about my job.  This also sucks.  This is a 3rd thing that sucks.  A 4th, 5th, 6th.  Here's the 10,000,000,000,000th thing or person I don't like about my job".  She just finished counting her curses.  Big surprise:  she starts to get depressed!

She's got a great job.  If she tried, she could list 10,000,000,000,001 great things about it.  She could count her blessings instead of her curses.  I'm sure she'd feel 100% better.  Similarly, she's been hyperfocused on the dark side of friends, family members, and other situations in her life.

I know she'd be happier if she spent time every day brainstorming all the good things in all the major aspects of her life.  Based on the research in The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want, I'd advise her to also pick one day a week to REALLY crank up her contemplation of the good things in her life.

But she won't do it.  I know what would help an alcoholic become healthier.  Stop drinking.  But it isn't that easy for them.  The destructive habits they have serve another purpose for them that is hard to let go of.

So what is the "other purpose" of counting your curses?  What benefit does it give to people like my friend?  If you find fault with your job, your friends, your family, your genes, and everything else around you, then you can blame these outside factors for everything that isn't up to par in your life.  Gratitude, on the other hand, takes courage.  If you "count your blessings", you admit that you are blessed.  You admit that you have been given opportunities.  Then, if your life isn't the way you want it to be, you have to own this.

Gratitude implies responsibility.  I can't be grateful and point fingers at the same time.  If I count my blessings, I leave myself holding the bag, fully accountable for the situations in my life that I'm not satisfied with.

So my friend might have a simple shortcut to happiness:  she can count her blessings instead of her curses.  But she won't take the shortcut.  It might take years of therapy before she's willing to take this shortcut of cultivating gratitude and accepting the responsibility that goes with it.