The Greatest Gift: Gratitude

In this day and age, one is often focused on aspirations, goals and those things to be attained, things not held. Seldom is our focus on a sense of gratitude for where we are and what we have now.

Of course gratitude for what you have would be considered complacency by some, or even passe; but it is only in a world of such incredible abundance that the concept of thanks seems somehow anachronistic.

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.

We move purposefully or listless from task to task and place to place, complaining about one thing or another. The traffic, someones driving, a colleague for whom we harbor justifiable disdain. We are “busy” fulfilling whatever sets of criteria in order to obtain that symbol of status, jump through those proverbial hoops to attain that something that someone will hopefully value as much as we do; or envy us for.

In the former communist Soviet states, people lined up for bare essentials, food, toilet paper, while non essentials like vodka, hopelessness, oppression, cirrhosis and inebriation were readily available.

Contrast this with the prosperous west where people line up at sales to get more of the things they already have in abundance. A new phone on the release date. An autograph from somebody formerly famous or soon not to be. Your 25th pair of shoes....

It’s nice to have first world problems.

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.

Take a moment and look around you. Consider some of the contemporary marvels in your life. Those things attained and available, not merely hoped for.

For many of you, a first class education which was hard fought and dutifully earned that has been enhanced by many modern developments. Your achievement is not so much about the credentials and status, but rather the acquisition of something that can never be taken away from you. The basis for your future. The idea and tools of how to learn and grow.

Maybe it’s those mentors who took an interest in you, your underlying talents or the potential that you were unable to see subjectively. They provided you guidance and periodically gave you a kick in the ass. These people helped to steer you along until you were ready to lift off and leave the nest, or move beyond a certain level.

Perhaps it’s the internet which provides abundance in so many ways, yet unimagined. The ability to communicate, consume, create and to garner solace at difficult times. This tool has made so many lives better it’s hard to believe we ever lived without it.

The vibrant cities that many of us live in provides endless opportunities to socialize, work and evolve. In free open cities our minds are constantly humming with the buzz of thought and action.

For endless gadgets, ever more powerful, reliable and capable. Today’s phone is a map, phone, book, radio, Walkman, store, and worldwide encyclopedia and much more. It is hard not to be grateful for such an amazing tool.

Technological advancement is adding opportunities in many fields every day, even as old antiquated ways of doing things fall aside. We have access to better health outcomes, more efficient cars, multiple ways to communicate, better decisions.

Markets for everything, and the incredible logistics that serve them. Every day we can enjoy the rare bounties of faraway lands. Ideas molded into useful tools and trinkets. The building blocks of creativity.

In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.

At this time of year, as we run aimlessly to obtain the ephemeral, the endlessly superficial. An expectation due fulfillment. That one more piece of bounty to be forgotten a month from now. In the midst of this gratuitous abundance, it is good to take a moment and be thankful for the things that count. Those treasures of deep value.

Strong relationships with wonderful people.

Those things earned especially through toil and struggle.

The ability to give; and the honor of owing someone who has helped you in some way.

A debt of gratitude for abundance so great that we really want for nothing other than the freedom to think, act and grow to our given potential.

Take a moment and reflect. Open your mind to the possibilities beyond the purely superficial.

Be gracious and grateful.