Gratitude Journal Fallacy
People who think of themselves as rationalists, but have not yet gotten good at rationality, may be susceptible to this.
Basically, these people want to feel like they came up with or found out about a Super Awesome Thing that No One Does that Creates a Lot of Awesomeness with Comparatively Little Effort. (This is especially dangerous if the person has found out about the concept of more dakka.) They may try the thing, and it works. But if it doesn’t, they sometimes just continue doing it because it has become part of their self-image.
Think of keeping a gratitude journal. Studies show it improves your well-being, so I did it. After about a week I realized that I was not doing it because it was improving my well-being, only because I wanted to think of myself as someone who does Awesome Things No One Does. And it did improve my well-being, but only in that it made me feel sort-of-happy for like 2 minutes. In the time it takes for me to write about the stuff I was grateful for each day, I could do some other thing, that creates more utility-per-unit-effort.
I hear ya, but your one example is equivalent to saying “I lifted weights for a week and realized I wasn’t getting any stronger so I stopped.”
The gratitude journal has compounding effects over time because it builds your mental habit of looking for things to be grateful for. When you start saying “Oh, I’m gonna add that to my journal later!”, that’s one sign that it’s starting to work.
Aah, okay. Oops. Thank you. :/
(I will try the gratitude journal for like 4 more weeks, and see if the increase in my well-being is measurable. While I now agree with the problem you identified with my local example, I think the broader fallacy my post was talking about still exists; While I cannot think of any other examples that apply to myself, I do sometimes notice myself sort of “yearning for Amazing Things No One Does”. I’m sure if I had more time I could think of more concrete stuff.)
What are the higher utility per unit effort things you could be doing instead during that time? Did you stop doing a gratitude journal? If so, did you do those other things instead?
I ask that because I have often found myself making the opposite mistake of one you describe: There’s something I’m considering doing (usually because someone suggested it), and I think to myself that that’s not the optimal thing for me to do, so I decide not to do it, but instead of doing something higher-value, I end up doing nothing in particular and would have been better off doing the moderate-value thing.
Oh, just studying, working on my stories, working on my songs, working on my conlang, getting better at coding, getting better at art, generally just enjoying being a human, in this beautiful, beautiful universe before it gets disassembled into nothing...
maybe the reason you didn’t see any improvement beyond the edification of your self-image as a person who does awesome things no one does because you didn’t do the awesome thing (i.e. keeping a gratitude journal) correctly?
The reason say this is I don’t understand how a Gratitude Journal works. I feel like it is absurdly easy to quota fill a journal every day with things I am supposed to be grateful for, even if I’m (and I hope I’m not) an entitled and spoiled brat who feels like the world somehow feels the world owes me more than I’ve received.
”I’m grateful that I have eyes, I saw a caution sign and avoided tripping and injuring myself, some people are blind, have diminished vision. They may not have seen the sign. I’m grateful for the vision I have.”
″I broke my favourite mug today, I’m grateful that I had a favourite mug at all and got to enjoy it for the two months I had it, and further grateful that I’m not so destitute that I can’t afford to replace it”
It seems like it’s very easy to come up with these things, especially if you’re allowed to repeat them day after day. But how does that process help?
Being a person who does awesome things that no one else does is only effective when you do awesome things correctly. I don’t know—maybe you were doing it correctly.
To be honest...
...I just wanted to ask how a gratitude journal should be kept in order for it to be effective
Well, you’re definitely not supposed to fill it with things you’re supposed to be grateful for, for one thing; you’re supposed to fill it with things that actually bring you joy (above baseline levels). E.G.: “I’m happy I got paid today”; “I had a really nice date with my partner”; “I enjoyed playing [video game]; “the sunset was lovely today”; etc. The idea is that it trains you to pay attention to, and remember to savor, positive events in your life, which in turn will improve your overall enjoyment.
I’m clearly missing something here, do you mind over-explaining it to me?
But that is limited by the things which genuinely produce an above-baseline level of joy, then how does that train me to do anything since I already need to be in the habit of noticing them otherwise they don’t get journaled? And what if I know I should be grateful for getting paid today, but I don’t feel joy about it—if my genuine feeling is “I should get more”—how does that factor in? Surely the person who feels they deserve more is the exact kind of person who needs to journal gratitude because they aren’t having enough gratitude—but if you’re not meant to journal things which you intellectually know should or are supposed to be grateful for, but don’t earnestly feel it—then how does this work?
And what if on a given day, nothing brings me joy, It’s a really “some days it doesn’t pay to get out of bed” kind of day? Again, surely those are the days where a gratitude is paramount—to somehow reframe the day?
I know I’m missing something here, or maybe there’s some implicit assumptions I’m bringing which are warping my understanding.
Hmm. I think the standard narrative is that at first it’s difficult to think of journal entries, because you’re not in the habit of taking note when pleasant things occur, but over time you get into the habit of mentally tracking nice things throughout the day, which enables you to list things more easily. If you don’t feel joy about it, it doesn’t go in the gratitude journal; you might take some other action about the unpleasant feelings (journaling about them elsewhere, asking for a raise, etc.), but trying to make yourself feel grateful by brute force is unlikely to help.
If you notice partway through the day that you haven’t had anything enjoyable today, you might try adding some readily-accessible source of pleasure (tasty food, a book you like, recreational drugs if you’re into that sort of thing, etc.). However, it’s perfectly alright to leave a day empty, or to simply report that nothing you’re grateful for happened that day. If you have a great number of days with nothing nice in them, you likely have some problem for which a gratitude journal is not the right tool; broadly, such issues are best addressed with changes to your material circumstances, or (if psychological) medication (my personal preference) and/or therapy.
One reason to journal and/or use a planner in general is that this provides an opportunity to make use of pretty stationery items (e.g. washi tape and stickers), if you’re into that sort of thing; many such items can be had quite cheaply online, and they come in a wide variety of attractive designs.
If I understand you correctly the purpose isn’t the journal itself (using stickers and pretty stationary aside), but it affords inducing a kind of Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon: where one is primed to notice moments of joy in their day? But unlike the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon or Frequency Illusion which is unintentional—the idea is to actively and intentionally habituate it.
In the same way, and I’m wildly speculating here, that a jeweler begins to “notice” qualities in gemstones over time? A jeweler, say looking for faults in diamonds, over time will just twist it in a certain way, and intuitively “know” what to look for.