Gotta Thank Them All

or, what I've learned from the Pokémon TCG Pocket app

Several weeks ago, my brother shot me a text telling me I needed to download the Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket app. I told him I needed neither more apps nor more games on my phone. And plus, why would I want a virtual version of Pokémon cards when I could just go buy the real things? God knows there are hundreds of them at my parents’ house.

“Just do it,” he texted back.

Anyway, now I’m hooked.

There’s a curious feature in the game, though, that gives me pause each time I stumble upon it. Any interaction you have with another real-life player—a match, for example—presents you with a mundane yet profitable opportunity. At the end of the duel, whether you’ve emerged victorious or been absolutely trounced, you arrive at a screen that says: “Send a thanks?” In so doing, you actually send the other person some in-game currency. (And hopefully, they send some back to you.)

The whole interaction is free of charge. You pay no real money, and you click just as many times to get back to the home screen whether you opt to give thanks or not. The stakes are basically nonexistent. Why not just automate the whole thing? I always wonder. Just send each player a ticket or whatever after each match and bypass this whole section.

But what gives me pause is this: I could say no. I could offer no thanks. I could opt to send this stranger absolutely nothing—even though it costs me nada either way.

And so, when I arrive at this screen, I suddenly find myself paying very close attention to my emotions. Am I pissed off because I got utterly crushed? Am I irritated with myself for a miscalculation? Am I flying high because I won handily? And so on. Essentially: Is there something helping or hindering my disposition toward gratitude?

All of this from a game of virtual cards with nothing at stake.

I’m grateful for this seemingly frivolous screen. I’m grateful for the opportunity to give thanks, sure. But more importantly, I’m intrigued by the social experiment it presents: How often do we withhold our gratitude for the simple and the mundane when a grateful spirit costs us nothing? When our own disposition toward gratitude actually helps another? When that mysterious stranger might—through their own glimmer of gratitude—give us something we’d previously not possessed?

I’m convinced that—like in the Pokémon TCG Pocket app—every social interaction, every collision we have with another human being, presents us with an opportunity to “send a thanks.” We’re always being asked to give a smile, a hug, a clap on the back. We’re always being offered a chance to delight in the simple presence of another.

But how often do we take that chance? How often do we wait and wonder how it will be received and if it will be returned? How often do we simply withhold our thanks? How often would we prefer—instead of gratitude—to give someone nothing, when both cost us exactly the same?

As we barrel toward a new year with countless new opportunities to give thanks, let’s reflect on why and when we withhold such an offering. Let’s reflect on what hinders or helps our disposition toward gratitude.

And let’s consider this: Perhaps failing to give thanks actually does cost us something. And perhaps that prices gets steeper and steeper with each miserly shrug.