A while back, I wrote a post looking back at my bariatric surgery a year ago, and thinking about how my life has changed. That post got some attention, mostly by other health and lifestyle blogs. The conclusion I came to in that post was that, although there have been some lifestyle changes since the surgery, the weight loss was worth it.

I feel like that message might have been misleading. Yes, the weight loss has meant that a lot of things have gotten easier for me (exercise is easier, finding clothes is easier, social interactions are easier), but it’s important to be clear: this wouldn’t have happened without surgery.

Everyone will tell you that the way to control your weight is through diet and exercise. What they don’t tell you is that this advice only works if you have a “normal” metabolism that predictably burns calories as they are consumed. With the metabolism of a young, fit, healthy person, if you have a temporary imbalance of intake vs. output, you will have an equally predictable weight gain or loss, which is easily remedied by paying a bit of attention to your diet or exercise regimen.

But there are a million things that affect metabolism, including long-term dieting, aging, certain chronic illnesses, lifestyle, and heredity. And once your metabolism starts to change, there is a cascading set of changes that reinforce it, like the production of the hormone that controls hunger and the hormone that control satiety.

It’s absolutely possible to use diet and exercise to get from morbidly obese to a “normal” BMI, those things won’t change your metabolism, and won’t change your hormones, which is why almost everyone who loses weight through diet and exercise fails to maintain that loss.

When I talk about surgery changing my life, I don’t just mean my behaviors and experiences. My body chemistry has changed. My metabolism is back to that of a fit, healthy person, the hormone that causes me to feel hunger has been curtailed, and the hormone that tells me when I’m full has ramped up. These are fundamental changes that mean that I stand a much better chance of maintaining a lower weight than I would have if I just dieted and exercised.

I say all this because I don’t want people reading about my weight loss to feel bad about themselves because they’re not achieving the same result. If we’re both digging holes and I have a backhoe and all you’ve got is a spoon, it’s not your fault that I’m making better progress than you, and it doesn’t make you weak, or a failure, or lazy.

The fact that I lost weight doesn’t mean I’m a better person than I was before. What I really want is for people to feel good about themselves – worthwhile and lovable and comfortable – regardless of their weight, shape, or lifestyle.

It’s been happening everywhere – people’s bodies found at home, at their offices, at restaurants, their brains and hair and blood spattered over every surface, as though they had just burst. The worst part is that the group claiming responsibility is, on the one hand, so disorganized that they have members who don’t even realize that they’re part of a terror cell. How do you feel if you’re a high school kid whose mom has asked her to carry a package to band practice, and that package contains cash, fake documents, or bomb components? Sure, that kid has heard all the rhetoric, but she’s too young to fully appreciate that blowing people up rarely helps anything.

I stumble on something that resembles a Tupperware party. The hostess has brought in a large aquarium with sand strewn with big, fake-looking plastic clams and treasure chests. The aquarium is full of actual sea water, and the guests are pulling things out of the water and opening them to see what prize they’ve won. It’s a decorative hair comb! It’s a jaunty hat! There are men and women there, and everyone’s in that giddy mood that accompanies the prospect of getting something for nothing.

My friends and I come in to see the host’s face temporarily fall, then a mask of smug derision fall into place. “You’re too late. They’re with us now.” We go around the table, confiscating people’s prizes. Some of the people fight us, because even though the prize cost them nothing and has only been in their possession for five minutes, they will feel cheated if it’s taken away. We show them the truth: the hair combs and hats and other baubles are all made of C4 with tiny detonators. It’s not much, but certainly enough to blow someone’s head off. The faces are suddenly pale and much less enthusiastic, swiveling in the hostess’s direction, looking for denial. Her smile hardened and glittered.

We threw the aquarium and its contents into the ocean (conveniently a few feet away), and we grabbed the hostess and threw her in too. She didn’t even try to swim, and I noticed as she sank that her body looked already drowned—bloated and wrinkled and pale.

But now her people are after me. I head into a coffee place to hide, but they’re there. They bought the place not long ago, and are using it as a source of information. People never think of servers as spies, and have unguarded conversations over latte. A woman approaches me, and I know that she’s trying to kill me. So I act like I’m high. I want her to think that I’m incapacitated and will be an easy mark. She’s young, she might buy it. I ask her to direct me to the bathroom, and she takes me in the back down a long hall. I start opening doors off the hall, telling her that they should put in 3-way doors – the kind that can have up to 3 different rooms on the other side of them, depending on how you turn the handle and open it. She looks smug and relaxed, so while she’s fumbling in her pocket for something, I disappear into one of the doorways that leads to an outdoor area. She thought it led into a broom cupboard, but the 3-way door thing is true, and I know how it works. I’m outside before she can follow me, and use my superior knowledge of forbidden physics to step over the patrons’ heads to the outside.

I’m out of her reach for now, but they’re still looking for me.

There is a disturbing trend among liberals to talk about gratitude. Everyone’s encouraged to have gratitude for the abundance in their lives. Everyone’s supposed to be grateful for all their blessings. On the surface, it’s a lovely sentiment. People should be mindful of the fact that they live privileged lives, and use that awareness to inform their interactions with people who are less privileged.

But it never goes that deep. It stops at “be grateful because you have it good.” The new Gratitude encourages insularity – think hard about what you have so that you aren’t thinking about people who don’t have anything. Gratitude is selfish. Being grateful for what you have invites the desire for more – more stuff (more friends, money, recognition) equals more gratitude, right?

This year has been full of horror: while the world was outraged at 12 people killed in attacks on Paris, thousands have died in Nigeria at the hands of Boko Haram. Pakistan is a mess. Syria’s civilian population is fleeing, and many in the United States have insisted they’re not welcome. Here in the United States, Donald Trump has been steadily rising in the polls on a platform of racism, sexism, and xenophobia. Black Americans are being gunned down in the street under laughably thin pretexts, with no consequences to the shooters, despite the fact that those gunned down are unarmed.

Why aren’t you angry? Why aren’t you beside yourself with rage? Because you’re grateful. You’re looking at your pile of Christmas presents and thinking “I’m so grateful.” Maybe you volunteered at a shelter or a soup kitchen as part of your holiday celebrations. Were you angry then?

I’m not saying that you should spend all your time with your teeth gritted and the veins standing out in your neck. I’m not even saying that you shouldn’t be grateful for the good things in your life. I’m just saying that it should never stop there. Feel good about what’s good. But feel bad about what’s bad. Feel bad enough to want to spend 2016 working to change it.