November 23, 2006
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Thanks And Gratitude
I’m trying to develop my relationship with gratitude. I’m not especially thankful for anything that I wasn’t thankful for last year; it’s all the same stuff. And being me, I’m not sure what value there is in listing it again.
The practice of gratitude, however, is different from having a list of things for which you’re thankful. I’m grateful. I’m grateful for everything. Just now I completed a cycle of inhalation and exhalation. I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful for the money in the bank. Grateful for the banana I just ate.
See how this list is boring? If it contained everything I’m grateful for, it would be literally endless. Gratitude is the bottom layer; everything’s built on top of it.
Of course, we lose sight of that. Or, I should say, *I* lose sight of it, and I bet you do, too. Whether that’s a big deal is up to you, of course. Sometimes it’s a big deal for me.
‘Gratitude’ and ‘grace’ share word origins. They both come from Latin ‘gratus.’
Thus, gratitude is the acknowledgment of grace. Gratitude for the continued metabolism of my pulmonary system is acknowledgment of the grace of the universe. Breathe in, breathe out. Neeto. The universe decided to keep me alive again.
Grace is sometimes defined as slack. That is, if you’re late on your payment, there’s sometimes a grace period, right? Cut me some slack, man..? I’m grateful for the slack. My life is one long slack. A series of pointless misadventures, it seems sometimes. The very pointlessness leads one to think in terms of grace and gratitude rather than thankfulness.
There are things for which I am grateful, for which I will never give thanks. I don’t like them and would rather they not be associated with me, but I recognize them as meaningful and powerful and in many ways graceful. And deserving of gratitude. This is the interesting list, as opposed to the boring one above. It’s undergoing constant revision. It’s hard to write out. Hard to believe it even exists.
Thus: My ongoing relationship with gratitude.
That said: I’m both thankful and grateful for all the people that come around here and hang out and say stuff and let me know they thought about what I wrote. Or even acknowledge that they read it. Or even left ‘footprints.’ But that’s in a descending order of matter-ing-ness, so if you just looked, you don’t get as much thanks. Seriously. I mean, thanks, but you really should start commenting.
Comments (8)
I like “appeciation”, though it overlaps with both “gratitude” and “thankfulness”.
Make that “APPRECIATION”.
gratitude is something that we often breeze by shouldn’t. You teach and show me much here Paul so I am grateful…
I’m thankful for our recent late-night chats.
I had to read your blog three times! I pulled out my Webster’s….Gratitude: A feeling of thankful appreciation for favors or benefits received! So, I concluded that the ‘favor’ was your teaching me something today. The ‘benefit’ was I learned something. Therefore; I should express my Gratitude towards you! At a minimum, a thanks!
Cool. I too.
Okay, the FlowerDoctor looked up the definition for me, which answered my question. Because, to me, gratitude/appreciation/thankfulness all mean the same. I traditionally use the word “thankful” instead. I suppose all those words could have mild deviations from each other, but in my world, they are just different levels of intensity of expressing the same thing.
Semantics aside, the older I get, the more thankful I am. And it’s become almost a constant. Once in a while I am overwhelmed by something and my thankfulness takes a short hike, but thankfully (heh), my thankfulness is usually intact and well-fed. I have found it to be a large factor in my happiness. I don’t think I could be a happy person without thankfulness/gratitude. And the more thankful I am, the happier I am. At least that’s how it works for me.
I’m thankful for your friendship and I’d love to get together again soon, if you’re in town. I know you’ve traveled a bit lately and you might be traveling for the holidays, but if you’re around this month, let’s try to share some oxygen.
I share the deep appreciation of connection, that is sometimes easier to practice “here” before moving up and out…