Ladies and gentlemen, the time has come for me to put Gratitude Watch to bed.
Yeah, I’m done.
I’ve been doing Gratitude Watch for over six months, and in a lot of ways it’s been a labor of love. Gratitude is a fine attribute, something everyone should cultivate if they aren’t already, and, simply, an essentially ingredient in becoming something worthy of being called a Human Being.
In a way, Gratitude Watch has been my form of “gratitude practice,” rather than doing a gratitude journal, list, or any of the many other methods I’ve run across.
So Why Stop?
Why am I shelving Gratitude Watch? Simply, the return is not commensurate with the effort.
Here’s why:
- Putting together a Gratitude Watch can take between three to six hours. Beyond finding the material, there’s quite a bit of formatting that goes into the post itself. I’ve also been making an effort to locate the Twitter accounts for the authors of the posts I linked to when it seemed likely they might have Twitter accounts, which can eat up quite a bit of time in itself.
- I preferred to have more than one gratitude-related video per installment, and finding a gratitude video that: 1. has something of value to communicate, and 2. communicates the message well is not easy. If you are a Twitter user, you may have noticed me grousing about the videos I find that … weren’t quite there, or … would have been fine if the audio track was understandable, or … would have been fine if the presenter’s tongue wasn’t green (seriously, I had one like that), or … wasn’t obviously an ad for a useless product, or … showed just a tiny bit of editing or consideration for the audience that might be trying to watch it. (Ye Gods.)
- Weeding through articles or posts worth sharing was not as difficult as finding good videos, but most gratitude posts are simply personal gratitude journal postings which have no value to anyone beside the individual posting them, and maybe some close friends. Also, I found filling the internet with empty gratitude calories were:
- Posts that were simply a single quote, which frankly struck me as a waste of internet bandwidth (and would have been for you as well, as a reader);
- Posts that had value but then undercut that value by lurching into an unrelated sales pitch or some kind of disconnected personal aside, which also didn’t deserve your time;
- Posts that appeared to have value in terms of content but were an unreadable single paragraph three hundred lines long which couldn’t possibly be serving the readers;
- Posts on sites where the pages took forever to load because of all the “widgets” in use, or the formatting was so messed up it was clear the author didn’t care about presentation at all; or, for that matter …
- Posts about gratitude on sites where the authors were otherwise simply stroking their own egos. (They can do this on their own time, thank you.)
- I will admit that over time I would see the same basic message repeatedly, and posts that I might have jumped on early on in my efforts to produce Gratitude Watch I found myself ignoring later on.
- And if I see that Melody Beattie quote about gratitude one more time, I will just scream!!!!!
About the Peanut Gallery
One thing I would really like to have seen was some support from the contributors. Let me explain this.
For several months I’ve been identifying the Twitter users who created material I’ve been linking to, and when I’d “tweet” (as the 140 character posts on Twitter are called) my announcement of a new Gratitude Watch, every one of these users could see that I’d found them and brought some attention to their material. My hope was that the authors of the material would show some … well, gratitude and maybe a little support by “re-tweeting” (sharing the tweet) which would expose Gratitude Watch to their own followers.
A natural, right? My hand washing their hand, right?
Ha.
One in twenty, maybe.
I’m thinking that had there been a little bit of support in this manner, the audience of readers of this site might of grown a little. My stats show that it didn’t.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The Good
There is some great material about gratitude out there, which will continue no doubt. On a recurring basis, Brenda Arnall at It’s a New Day and Maya at The Gratitude Journal consistently give us something worth reading and reflecting on. Maya in particular does something that I saw rarely — that she is able to take something very personal and make it relevant to anyone reading it, not just a few friends that happen to be “in the loop.”
As you have probably gathered if you’re been following me, I tend to lean more Conservative than most of the New Thought crowd. Despite this, I have found an excellent source of gratitude-related posts of substance has been none other than The Huffington Post. Gratitude, generally, is “above” politics, and I’m pleased to see the Post allows it, as a subject, to maintain its own integrity.
The Bad
As I mentioned above, most gratitude posts on the internet are personal gratitude journals, written in such a self-absorbed way they would have no value to you, my readers. The second largest “throw away” group were posts with so little content beyond their keywords that it was a waste of bandwidth to visit the site. The third were posts that had nothing new to offer, or those where what was there of value was so buried in such a poor presentation there was no point in sharing it.
The Ugly
I am not naming names, but I think you’ll be able to understand the kind of material I’m talking about here, and might even pick up on the specific sources.
One group I’m thinking of in particular makes a claim that if you watch their video you will begin to see a symbol of gratitude everywhere. The owner of the group went so far as to contact me, calling him/herself a title worthy of a United Nations envoy.
Puh-leeze. Next they’ll be bringing in the Ashtar Command.
At best, this group is a quirky “fringe” group. At worst they’re a cult. In the middle of that range they may have some sales gimmick somewhere that I didn’t run across and have no interest in finding.
Lastly, unfortunately there are a number of folks that I’m going to call “gratitude pimps,” people out to use gratitude to sell products of absolutely no value whatsoever. I was contacted by a person who had a site consisting of a page of YouTube videos he/she had cobbled together from other sources, and some miscellaneous other pages of some generic introductory content. The “product” were balls that appeared to be the size of ping-pong or golf balls that one could carry as a method to keep gratitude in mind, reminiscent of the “gratitude rock” idea featured in The Secret … remember, the small pebbles found freely in a riverbed?
There are good gratitude products out there. I will point to Jo Englesson’s “Tokens of Appreciation,” which, when passed along, compel the giver and recipient to both think about gratitude in very personal terms. I have yet to find a better method attached to a product to generate this kind of attention.
Los Endos
Gratitude Watch has been a labor of love, and it is possible I may return to something like it in the future. It would, however, have to be something that is essentially self-supporting, and as a friend of mine said a while back “no gratitude site is going to make you any money.”
Interesting quandary. Maybe someday I’ll solve that one.
Make no mistake — gratitude will be a visitor to The Meaning of Existence (and all that) in the form of posts on the subject, but Gratitude Watch is done for now.
Let me leave you with this, then: keep gratitude in your own heart, in your own way. I don’t think there’s one single thing I could suggest to you that would have more value for your life. Period.
All the best,
• • •
© 2009, by Daniel Brenton. All Rights Reserved.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Ah, Daniel, To Thine Own Self Be True! Gathering gratitude was a noble effort and it was nice while it lasted, but if it takes away from time for your own voice, it is hardly worth it in the end. You are too talented a writer to be a compiler of other writers’ thoughts! The internet is, after all, a vast wasteland of random rants and thoughts…but the good things will always find their way through and be perpetuated by those who appreciate them. Best of luck on whatever path you take next!
Julie –
Thank you for your supportive words. And I think you’ve nailed it — I’ve been itching to do more writing. As my personal situation permits, you’ll be seeing more of that (or about that) here.
– Daniel
Daniel,
I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for all the work you’ve done and for mentioning my posts awhile back when I was getting started….I really appreciated that, and things have grown from there in a way I hope is helpful to others along the way.
Best of luck to you, and I hope to see your writing on other subjects soon!
Felicia
While I’ll miss your unique perspective and the thought-provoking material you did manage to find on the Internet, I certainly understand and respect your decision. Life is short…far too short to spend it doing something that brings more frustration than rewards. Thanks for your inspiration and for all that you did to promote the value of gratitude.