Thankfulness or gratitude is an
obvious subject during this season.
So, my challenge became how to talk about these concepts in a different
way. As a schoolteacher, my first
impulse is to research and then read.
In my search for inspiration, I came across an article from the November
21, 2011 New York Times. In a
nutshell, it stated that scientific studies prove that gratitude is good for
your health. People who cultivate “an
attitude of gratitude have better health, sounder sleep, less anxiety
and depression, higher long-term satisfaction with life and kinder behavior
towards others.” Gratitude improves the immune
system. Grateful people are less
likely to become aggressive. They
have more social connections. The
benefits seem to go on and on.
Psychologists say that gratitude is actually a form of cognitive
behavioral therapy, changing people’s thought patterns and dramatically
changing their moods. Gratitude is
an inside job.
The trick is in being grateful for everything
– the good and the bad.
That’s right! We need to be
grateful for the bad things, too.
Crazy, right? Then I started thinking. Most of us have read the Prophet
by Kahlil Gibran. When
talking about joy and sorrow, he wrote: The deeper that sorrow carves into your
being, the more joy you can contain. I think we can recognize the truth in this. All of us have suffered the loss of
loved ones in course of our lives.
Those losses generally help us cherish those still present in our lives
even more. So, I guess, in that
regard, we can be grateful for the loss. Perhaps we have experienced betrayal by a
friend. Instead of embracing the
bitterness, why not be thankful for the experience that has made us wiser. At times in life we encounter
difficulties. Rather than taking a
pessimistic view, why not try being grateful for the strength and endurance
these trials build in us. The
great American philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote: "Cultivate the
habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give
thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your
advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.” By “all things”, I think he meant the
bad as well as the good. Being
grateful for the negative things expresses the belief that our lives are more
than just the current set of circumstances. Optimism and negativism are perceptions. It’s how we choose to look at things. I read this somewhere: “An optimist
says the glass is half -full. The
pessimist says the glass is half- empty.
The grateful person says the glass is twice as large as it has to be. “ We can choose to be grateful.
So
this Thanksgiving let’s be grateful for all that is good, pleasurable and right
with and in our lives. But, let’s
not forget all those difficulties that have helped us appreciate and enjoy that
sweetness and good fortune even more.
So, in conclusion, let me
turn to the words of another great American philosopher, Johnny Appleseed: The Lord is good to me and so I thank
the Lord for giving me the things I need – the sun and the rain and the apple
trees – The Lord is good to me.”
Happy Thanksgiving ya’ll!
