We have become so used to comfort that it’s hard to tolerate inconvenience. But almost unnoticed by us are many occasions that fail to generate our grace. For example, we Bostonians, who live in a major medical center, did not suffer from Covid-19 like those living elsewhere. As of Nov. 18, there have been a total of 96,752,266 cases of the disease in America, and 1,064,975 residents have died. All we had to do to stay on the right side of the statistic was to get the inoculation and the booster shots and occasionally wear a mask.

One of the most dismal human experiences is to be unemployed and unable to support your family. In the first year of his administration, President Joe Biden created 6.6 million jobs, the greatest job growth by any president. Then on Feb. 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine and forced America to make economic adjustments to aid Ukraine.

Russia’s attack on Ukraine created an international inflation. Understandably, Americans are peeved as the price of gas and food began to climb, but there is also an occasion of gratitude that is not commonly apparent. Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, has a nationalistic objective to recreate another dominant USSR. The American intervention forced him to resort to a survival mode. The Russian brutality against the Ukrainians indicates what the culture of that part of the world would be.

Sometimes gratitude is not also painless.