Gratitude

image courtesy of: joettles.com

Gratitude

This topic of discussion arose between my wife and I recently. How many people nowadays express their gratitude for something to another? Much less than there should to be.  Too many folks just take what they receive for granted or sadly, with an attitude of entitlement.

For many, gratitude means to be thankful or to give thanks for something we value.  An emotional feeling of appreciation for a kind of     act directed towards you.      

From the online reference source, Wikipedia, we are provided with this:
“Gratitude, thankfulness, gratefulness, or appreciation is a feeling or attitude in acknowledgment of a benefit that one has received or will receive. “

Browsing the web,  I discovered the following quotes about gratitude:
“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.”
— William Arthur Ward (writer)

“Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts.”
— Henri Frederic Amiel

“When a person does’t have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity.” — Elie Wiesel

“Gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy.” — Jacques Maritain

What lessons did I learn from my parents and grandparents about gratitude?

As a small child, it was always thank those who provided you with a gift at your birthday party. You did that either face to face or afterwards on the old fashioned house telephone.

As a teen and later young adult, I was taught to send a small note or a card of thanks to someone who taught you a new skill, provided assistance in a job lead, a tip that paid off for you or maybe just a note of admiration and thanks to a person you just damn well felt good about.

The responsibilities of caregiving drove home the necessity of expressing gratitude to all of my parents’ medical providers, nurses, can’s, whenever we had an appointment or need for their services. My late father’s banker, for example, is now the banker for my wife and I primarily due to the conscientious and loving attention she provided to dad.

Sociologist Georg Simmel calls gratitude, “ the moral memory of mankind.”

Robert Emmons, professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis campus, and a leading scientific expert on gratitude, has discovered through his research that practicing gratitude has proven to be one of the most reliable methods for increasing happiness and life satisfaction. Gratitude appears to strengthen the immune system and lower blood pressure. Gratitude has also been found to strengthen and enhance relationships.

Gratitude is viewed as a prized human propensity in the Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish and Hindu traditions.

Gratitude is something we need to show and spread around a lot more in our society today in place of smugness, entitlement and the notion that, ‘the world, or, somebody owes me something.’

It is an easy trap to fall into. That is, taking for granted all of what we have today that, at one time, was all merely dreams or a bucket list of achievements yet to be fulfilled.

A simple statement and a quote to end this blog comes from the late President John F. Kennedy.
“We must find the time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.”


Jeff Dodson
August 9th 2014