You Don’t Owe Life Gratitude

And fuck all the self-help gurus selling you this shit.

you don’t owe life gratitude

for the bruises it gave you

and called character

you don’t owe life a thank you

for the crumbs swept from tables

you were never allowed to sit at

you don’t owe the sunrise shit

if all it ever did

was wake you up

to another shift,

another bill,

another silence

in the shape of a future

you can’t afford

they told you to count blessings

while they counted profit

off your back

off your hours

off your mother’s tired hands

off your father’s bent spine

you don’t owe life

grace

poise

humility

you survived.

you made it through.

bare-knuckled, jaw clenched,

feet bleeding in cheap shoes.

that is enough.

your breath is not a gift.

your body is not a debt to be repaid.

this world owes you an apology

for every time it asked for gratitude

instead of justice.

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They tell us to be grateful. Like it’s a virtue. Like gratitude is the thing that will save us from the weight of everything we’re carrying. But what they really mean is: don’t complain. Don’t make noise. Don’t want more. Be grateful is code for stay in your place.

And we should all be fucking raging.

Every single day we hand over pieces of ourselves — our time, our health, our minds, our sleep — to systems that don’t see us. We work ourselves to the edge of collapse so people with clean fingernails can keep pretending the world makes sense. And then we’re told to say thank you. For what? For the burnout? The underpayment? The exhaustion dressed up as “team spirit”?

Rage is not the enemy. Rage is what happens when you still know you deserve better. Rage is a sign of life. It means you haven’t been fully domesticated by survival. And if you’re working class, survival isn’t a season you get through — it’s your baseline.

The myth of gratitude exists to keep us quiet. If you’re grateful, you won’t organise. If you’re grateful, you won’t push back. If you’re grateful, you won’t call it what it is — exploitation. You’ll call it opportunity. You’ll blame yourself for being tired. You’ll feel guilty for not smiling while handing over the last bits of your body, your energy, your soul.

Real gratitude — the kind that rises naturally, without effort — that’s privilege. That’s safety talking. That’s someone who isn’t fighting for rent. Someone who isn’t counting the hours until payday. Someone who hasn’t had to sit in a cold kitchen wondering how the fuck they’re going to stretch what’s left.

Gratitude is easy when your needs are met.

Gratitude is marketed to poor people like a sedative.

“Be grateful for what you have” is just the spiritual version of “know your place.”

Because if working class people stop being grateful for scraps — they might start asking for the whole table. If we stop saying thank you for barely surviving — we might start demanding to live.

That’s why every workplace, every government, every system that runs on cheap labour sells gratitude culture. Gratitude journals. Gratitude challenges. Gratitude practices.

But never justice.

Never rest.

Never enough.

And that’s not to say we don’t feel gratitude in working class life — we do. But it’s got dirt under its nails. It’s not “I am so blessed to have this corporate job.” It’s “I’m fucking lucky my mum taught me how to make a meal out of nothing.” It’s “Thank god for neighbours who leave food on your doorstep without asking.” It’s “We survived another day.”

Working class gratitude is private. Fierce. Protective. It doesn’t bow to power. It doesn’t perform for applause. It looks after its own.

But enforced gratitude — weaponised gratitude — that’s privilege policing you. That’s the difference.

And I’m telling you — you’re allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to say no. You’re allowed to hate the machine even if it feeds you just enough to keep going. The problem was never your lack of gratitude. The problem is a system that demands everything and gives nothing back but slogans and shame.

So rage. Rage in your journal. Rage at the dinner table. Rage in the quiet ways you resist. Rage in your art, your work, your silence, your solidarity. Rage is clean. Rage is clarity. Rage means you still remember what you’re worth.