Stoic Q&A: is gratitude a Stoic value?

Marcus Aurelius wrote an entire chapter of his Meditations as an exercise in gratitude toward others

[If you wish to submit a question for this series, or for the Stoic advice one, please send it to massimo at howtobeastoic dot org]

T. writes: In your Stoic advice column, you answered the question of whether one should be thankful and your answer was, if I may oversimplify, “yes.” Nevertheless, you did not list gratitude as one of the 24 Stoic practices, e.g. by counting one’s blessings (for virtue and preferred indifferents). Why is that? Also, how does gratitude relate to the concept of “amor fati”? If one should “love fate,” wouldn’t that mean one should “love” and be grateful even for dispreferred indifferents such as chronic pain or poverty?

Excellent question, and though I will stand by my original answer (yes!), it gives me a chance to elaborate on it a little bit.

First off, the fact that gratitude is a Stoic value is clear simply from the perusal of the first book of Marcus’ Meditations, which is entirely devoted to thanking people who have influenced him in a positive fashion. For instance:

From my mother [I learned] abstinence, not only from evil deeds, but even from evil thoughts; and further, simplicity in my way of living, far removed from the habits of the rich. … From…