A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.

Gratitude requires admitting you received something you did not entirely earn. Pride makes that arithmetic impossible: if everything good was owed to you, then nothing arriving is a gift, and every shortfall is an injustice. What follows is a life full of receiving in which nothing ever quite counts.

When you catch yourself feeling shortchanged, ask what you would have to believe about your own claim for that feeling to be fair. Sometimes the claim holds. Often it loosens, and what was owed turns back into something given, which is far easier to enjoy.