Gratitude That Keeps You Small

I want to tell you something about that colleague in Kampala, and about the version of him that lives in your own head.

He was not wrong that I was grateful. I am grateful. For Raphael Mogire, my adopted father, who scraped together six hundred shillings so I could get on a bus to Moi University. For every door that opened when it might have stayed closed. For the scholarship, the fellowship, the chance. I receive all of that with full weight.

But there is a version of gratitude that has been handed to you as a control mechanism, and you are allowed to name it as such. Real gratitude does not require that you stay small. It does not require that you stop. It does not ask you to apologize for the next chapter, or the one after that.

You are not betraying the people who helped you by going further than they expected. You are honoring them.

— Job