I didn’t set out to write about gratitude on the day before Thanksgiving in the US, but alas here we are. Finally posting what I’d started last week, just in time for the holiday.
Everything is a gift. The degree to which we are awake to this truth is a measure of our gratefulness. Day and night, gifts keep pelting down on us. If we were aware of this, gratefulness would overwhelm us. But we go through life in a daze.
A power failure makes us aware of what a gift electricity is; a sprained ankle lets us appreciate walking as a gift, a sleepless night, sleep. How much we are missing in life by noticing gifts only when we are suddenly deprived of them.
Eyes see only light, ears hear only sound, but a listening heart perceives meaning. Everything is a gift. Grateful living is a celebration of the universal give-and-take of life, a limitless yes to belonging. A lifetime may not be long enough to attune ourselves fully to the harmony of the universe. But just to become aware that we can resonate with it — that alone can be like waking up from a dream.
Gratefulness is the key to a happy life, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy — because we will always want to have something else or something more.
~ Brother David Steindl-Rast
As I’m getting older, I’m finding the truth in this — that gratefulness is the source of happiness. For me, that has required a major shift in my thinking, and one I don’t think I would have been able to make earlier in my life.
I’ve been delving into the research on gratitude for middle aged and older people for an article I’m working on. Most of the results are what I expected, namely, that gratitude results in emotional, physical, and psychological benefits.
A research manuscript titled Gratitude across the life span: Age differences and links to subjective well-being notes that “…gratitude is associated with higher subjective well-being at all ages...”
Going a little further, though, the researchers also note that, “Across three large samples, age was positively associated with gratitude, such that gratitude was higher among older adults and lower among middle age and younger adults.”
My personal experience (older = more grateful) would certainly affirm this result, but I wonder about many middle aged people who, let’s just say, haven’t experienced the benefits of gratitude.
You know. The people who can always find the dark cloud to the silver lining, who seem to have the mindset that the world is going to hell and people are terrible. I know some of these people, and maybe you do, too.
As someone who has experienced the benefits of gratitude and mindfulness as I’ve gotten older, I’d love to be able to proselytize all the benefits to my less-grateful friends and acquaintances. Yet, I know that there are already many voices out there touting the life-altering positives that come from practicing gratitude regularly, and my voice would be just one very small addition.
But maybe seeing that I’ve found a deep sense of peace and happiness in my life might help just one other person.
So here I am, living a better life than I’d ever imagined, in ways that I’d never even dreamed of.
