In today’s culture of buzzwords and hashtags, the idea of gratitude can be oversimplified. Some people think that gratitude should be easy, but in fact, it can be hard to do consistently.
On some days, it can be effortless; this is true. For instance, when we have time off work, we’re grateful. We feel grateful when someone has shown us love or has given us a gift. Getting a raise or new responsibilities at work can make us feel grateful.
But, when we’re living the daily grind of paying bills or dealing with problems, it can be challenging to feel grateful. When we wish we could have something out of our reach, it’s hard to be grateful. It’s difficult to see the good things in our lives when we wish we have what others have. We only see what’s missing or isn’t working.
The good news is that gratitude is a remedy to unhappiness. It turns our attention towards the positive. Gratitude can keep us from taking things for granted. There are many beneficial outcomes when we experience gratitude. The key is making the conscious choice to be positive and grateful for what we do have in life, every day.
Gratitude can give us inner resilience. When life gets tough, our grateful attitude can protect us during turbulent times. Gratitude is a practice we should apply and repeat.
We become more satisfied in our lives and more hopeful for the future with gratitude. Studies show that there are health benefits to having gratitude in our lives. Grateful people are more alert, more enthusiastic, and more productive. They experience more love, happiness and optimism. They show more appreciation for their loved ones.
This article from Greater Good Magazine suggests gratitude can be essential to psychological well-being and even counteract depression and suicidal thoughts. “Gratitude…can be an incredibly powerful and invigorating experience,” says researcher Jeff Huffman. “There is growing evidence that being grateful may not only bring good feelings. It could lead to better health.”
Barriers to Gratitude
What do we all want out of life? Happiness, of course. Or more of what we don’t already have. Every day, we’re bombarded with advertisements, images and social media telling us we need to look better, be better and have better belongings. So, we always feel like we’re missing something. Even when we achieve that missing something, there is always something else out of our reach that will be next on the list that we think we must have in order to be satisfied. It can be a never-ending cycle of dissatisfaction.
Also, it’s human nature to want to compare ourselves to others. We tend to compare ourselves to those that have better bodies, better jobs, better houses, etc. This is a deeply rooted impulse that innately helps a person understand who they are: what they’re good at and what they’re not. Add social media to this, and suddenly they’re filled with envy. Then, satisfaction with their own life fades.
There’s only one reason why you’re not experiencing bliss at this present moment, and it’s because you’re thinking or focusing on what you don’t have. But, right now you have everything you need to be in bliss. ~Anthony deMello
Within us, we have the solution. We can train ourselves to focus our attention on what we have with the habit of gratitude and contentment. We should understand that the path to happiness already lies beneath our feet — where we stand now. This is easier to achieve for some than others.
Author, Loretta Breuning suggests an exercise called Conscious Downward Comparison. She says to think about the countless things we use and enjoy each day that would seem unimaginable to our ancestors 1000 years ago. It’s a wonderful reminder of the conveniences such as electricity and air transportation that we enjoy and take for granted today. Our ancestors of 1000 years ago didn’t have the privilege of modern medicine or clean drinking water that we enjoy today.
If we develop a habit of being grateful, being constantly aware of how fortunate we are, we can shift the perspective of our circumstances.
Feed the positive, starve the negative.
I came across a Cherokee legend that is relevant to this message of staying consciously grateful. It reads: “A grandfather is speaking with his grandson. He tells his grandson, “I have these two wolves always fighting within me. There is a good wolf, full of kindness, and generosity, and gratitude, and compassion. And a bad wolf, full of anger, and jealousy, and resentment. And they are always fighting each other.” The grandson asks him, “Well grandfather, which wolf wins?” And the grandfather says, “It is the one that I feed.”
In conclusion, it’s not our circumstances that create gratitude; it’s the perception of our circumstances. We can’t make our happiness conditional on things outside our control. The more complex our life becomes, the more expectations we have. So, we must make choices. We make the choice to move through life with a sense of appreciation in all we receive and to be content with our lives and the choices we make.
This is the power of gratitude.