The Attitude of Gratitude

The first time I came across this catchy phrase, when I was learning Reiki more than a decade ago. This post can partly be considered to be a sequel on Happ-I-ness, but to consider it that way or not is left to the reader’s discretion.

The Attitude of Gratitude

Hardly anyone amongst us ever stops thinking about what we want, but we don’t have. The theists amongst us pray to God asking for those things, and all of us strive towards getting those things or positions or whatever we had wished for. Nevertheless, in this fight of never-ending wants, we forget to focus on what we have, we forget to even take a minute to enjoy the things we achieved, or simply put, we forget to count our blessings. In any language, probably the most powerful words would be “I love you”, but there is another set of words, which is probably as powerful as these, and ironically, it is also a phrase used very scarcely as “I love you” and hence there is still misery amongst us humans, and as you would have probably guessed it, the phrase is “Thank You”.

Do we really lack the quality of being Grateful?

Most of us would oppose to this fact and say, we are grateful for what we have in life. If today X get a more paying job, or a salary hike, or a new house or any profound success, X would be thankful for that. Hence X is grateful, isn’t he? However, if the same X gets laid off, someone in his family gets a disease, or if X loses a chunk of money, will X still remain thankful? In most cases X would be depressed, angry and disappointed.

Our problem is, in most cases, our gratitude is incremental, i.e. it depends incrementally on what I have today that I did not have yesterday, and not just on what I have today. If on the other hand, we can have an absolute level of gratitude, we would still be thankful for what we have. X would still be happy he has a two-bedroom flat instead of the bunglow he had yesterday, and he can still have a happy time with his family. In no way are we trying to say that X shouldn’t work hard to earn back his bunglow and just remain content with the flat, however, being grateful for what he has in had will reduce his mental stress and trauma, this will ensure he doesn’t get angry at his family due to his tensions, and more importantly, with a composed mind, he will be able to focus more clearly on how to fix the situation.

The Perception of Glass Half Empty or Half Full

The other issues about being grateful come from the perspective with which we look at things. Sometimes, it all boils down to the well known story of how we perceive the things that come at hand. Let’s consider the same story of Half-Full-Half-Empty Glass with a slight twist. Say we go to someone’s place for dinner and they serve you half glass of some new flavored drink, looking at which you may mentally think positively that they served you only half glass since you are full with the dinner, or you may smirk at the thought that how can someone serve a guest half-glass something. For the half-full guys, you are already there at the level of gratitude, however, for the half-empty people, here we fork of the story into 2 sub-situations,

Situation 1: You really liked the flavored drink and were unhappy since they served only half-glass. But then you come to know that it was the only amount of flavored drink they had, and everyone else in the house sacrificed because you were the all important person who was offered the flavored drink, would your perception change? Would you now look at that gesture of even having a half-empty glass and smirk, or would you be heartily grateful and appreciate the half-full glass.

Situation 2: You did not like the flavored drink at all, but are forced to drink the amount served to you or after drinking the half-glass you realized that the drink had caffeine and since you are sensitive to caffeine, had you drank a glassful you’d be awake the whole night. Now, would you be unhappy that it was half-full, or would silently in your heart rejoice the fact that thankfully you only got a half-glass to swallow.

Both the above situations try to move us from a negative perspective to a positive one, nevertheless, there is a subtle difference between the two, in both of them we first started with the perspective that we wanted a glass-full but we did not know whether getting the half-glass was good or bad for us. There will be incidents in all our lives when we look back at events and say, Thank God that what I wanted did not happen, else I wouldn’t have gotten so much.

This is beautifully depicted by a famous statement said by the character of “God” in the movie “Bruce Almighty”, which says, “When we say may God grant all your wishes, what we forget is that, since when do we know what we actually want?” The above idea resonates the fact; that we never know what is the best for us and hence rather than crib for what we failed to achieve, we should be happy and grateful for what we have.

The Direct and Indirect Benefits of this Approach

The direct can be considered from the fact that the attitude of gratitude makes us thank people around us for whatever good they have done for us. Everyone likes to be appreciated for their hard-work and sincerity and if someone takes time to just thank the person for his efforts it just makes the work seem tireless. In fact, I bet most of us would work full nights out for people who take that one minute to appreciate our hard labor. The same holds for our superiors and subordinates as well. Thus if we sincerely and heartily thank them for what they have done for us, irrespective of the fact that it is our group director or the security guard who stands in front of the office, a difference in their attitude towards us will be visible.

The indirect may be a little hard to prove, but if you have learnt “Reiki”, read the BestSeller book “The Secret” or plainly known any religion, all of them preach that “Whatever vibrations you send out to the Universe get echoed back to you in a long run”. By taking the time to acknowledge our blessings each day, we become a magnet for further abundance because we are placing the energy of our thoughts into further manifestations in our life, rather than in what we do not have. As Reiki puts it, this works simply because, like everything else, thoughts are energy. The level of the vibration of our thoughts determines what we experience in life, what is drawn to us and what isn’t. If we are constantly focusing on lack and attuning to its vibration, that is what we will attract more of, in your life. Conversely, if we recognize and are thankful for the abundance and blessings in our life, many more will follow.

Final Verdict:

As is depicted in good movies like Pursuit of Happyness, Shortcut to Happiness, Bruce Almighty and many more, it boils down to the line said in Kung Fu Panda, “Yesterday is History, Tomorrow is a Mystery, but Today is a Gift, and that is why it is called Present.” So if we have a gift in our hand, the least we can do is be thankful for the gift. While we open the packet and realize that we haven’t got what we wanted, it’s time we remind ourselves of another dialogue from the same movie “There are no Accidents”, and then remain thankful for what we have today.

Before ending this post, I would sincerely like to “Thank the Universe” for the wonderful family and friends it has bestowed to me in this Journey called life. A special set of thanks to all my friends who give me critiques on my blog posts and point out my mistakes since “If someone points out your mistakes, be happy that at least someone is interested in what you have done” and a special thanks to a special friend who reminded me to write on this topic. Last but definitely not the least, a sincere and heartfelt thanks to You, my dear reader for patiently and painstakingly reading my blogs.

Quoting something I read somewhere, “God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say 'Thank you'?” -William A. Ward

So as a parting statement, take some time off to count your blessings; you will be surprised to find many things which are small or so routine that they go unnoticed every day till you list them down. Remembering the 4-line prayer we used to sing in A.G. (my Primary School)

Thank You God for the World so sweet,

Thank You God for the food we eat,

Thank You God for the Birds that sing,

Thank You God for Everything.

Like in Happiness, the word Grat-I-tude also has “I” in the middle, so start counting your blessings and I know for sure that many more will follow.