You know I think you are overthinking all this. One can be grateful for so many things that one has in ones life and it has nothing to do with kindness. I am grateful for the sun shining today and I can go out in my garden and sit under a tree and read a book, for example.

Ditto.

Actually gratitude is as related to happiness as placebo is related to treatment.

Oh, you are so negative. Tell me what have you to be grateful for today? It is just very simple. We don't think about things that we should be grateful for that we have but very easily think about what we lack.

@Jolanta mutual respect is negative? or is it disagreeing with a statement you made that is negative? i have to agree or i'm negative? sorry, that simply isn't true. i'm not a negative person and what i expressed is not negative. i have not mentioned what i lack, so you do not know what i easily think about. sorry, but your generalizations are not so. i am not negative and my guy and i freely, without obligation and without expectation that it would be anything but what it was, expressed our gratitude to each other yesterday. it was not a short cut to happiness. it wasn't supposed to be. (there is no such thing as a short cut to happiness.) it was what we wanted to say and do. that's what it was. it is what it is, not more, not less. i do not have to tell you what i have to be grateful for. i already expressed it privately. that's not negative. calling someone negative because they disagree with you is pretty negative! i didn't call YOU anything. i didn't characterize you because i disagreed with you. i made no judgments about you personally at all. i disagreed with what you said is all.

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@genessa I really wonder if you do think to yourself what you have to be grateful for every day.

@Jolanta you may continue to wonder, although i fail to see how it is anyone's business. i have already said what i did yesterday. i am not on a schedule. i feel and think what i do when i feel and think it, not according to when someone else thinks i should. that does not give anyone the right to judge me.

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@genessa I am not judging you just trying to make your live happier or more pleasant. Is that horrible of me.?

@Jolanta lol thanks but you cannot make my life happier or sadder. it's not horrible but it's silly. it is not your job and i don't think your advice regarding gratitude works. that's all i said, actually, that i didn't agree about gratitude.

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@genessa So have you tried it to be able to say it doesn't work?

@Jolanta no, and i have not tried jumping off a cliff either. you can't make yourself feel something. it's like trying to make yourself believe something. it's like pascal's wager. it's fake. it may not be fake for everyone. it would be for me. and why should this matter so much to you?

let me explain something that i have had to explain to my guy, who has alzheimer's.

he used to try to give me some of his food. i told him no thanks. he would get pushy about it. i had to get pushy back. he said he was just being nice. i told him, when you offered me food you were being nice. i didn't want any more food so i said no. when you asked me if i was sure, and i said i was sure, and then you KEPT pushing, it stopped being nice. you meant to be nice but you weren't being nice anymore. you were being the opposite of nice. take someone's word for something when they say they don't want something.

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Yes, but there is so much to be grateful for in our lives, things that we take for granted that other people do not have or are able to ever achieve.