Being grateful doesn’t mean pretending it’s fine. It means refusing to let the bad part be the only part you count.

Appreciation is not a demand that you approve of everything. A bad situation stays bad, and noticing the decent parts is not a way of agreeing with it or letting anyone off. The point is closer to arithmetic: if the difficulty is the only thing counted, the total you end up with is not accurate either. Both columns are real.

When something is genuinely hard, let it be hard and keep counting anyway. Name the difficulty plainly, then name one thing that is still holding. You are not obliged to feel better, only to stop keeping half the books.