This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantam.
If you make at least $30,000 a year, congratulations.
Your income is ten times the global median and in the top 5% of incomes worldwide.
If you are older than 35, congratulations.
For much of human history, many people died before they were 30.
If you have a job and stable income, live in a democratic country, and have a college degree, you are in a rarefied group in the history of humankind.
If you enjoy good health, good friends, nice vacations, you really ought to get down on your knees and thank providence.
So, are you on your knees yet?
Why is it, even when our lives are objectively better than the lives of most people who ever lived, we are all prone to seeing the clouds, not the silver lining?
This is true not just when it comes to global and historical statistics, but in our daily lives.
We notice small delays at the airport but ignore the miracle that we can literally fly across the world.
We take our health for granted and only notice the gifts of our limbs and our senses when they are taken away from us.
We zero in on annoyances in personal relationships and rarely pause to acknowledge what is wonderful about our friends, families, and coworkers.
Our ungratitude for our good fortune is so automatic and ubiquitous that it seems obvious there must be an underlying psychology to it.
That's the topic of today's show, the enemies of gratitude and how to fight them.
This week on hidden brain.
If you try to measure the size of an ant using a telescope, you won't get very far.
If you try to gauge the distance between stars using a microscope, you'll be hopelessly lost.
What's true in the physical world is also true inside our own minds.