How to Express True Gratitude
Nov 1st, 2007 by Rahul Bhambhani
“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”
- John F. Kennedy
Would you consider yourself a truly grateful person? Are you the rare person that appreciates everything (good or bad) in your life, and takes no moment for granted?
If so, you can stop reading now. If not (the majority of us), please continue reading.
Each day we awaken to a world of infinite possibility. We can spend our days any way we please, and we take full advantage of this right. We indulge in wonderful food, drive luxurious cars (if you don’t think your 1990 Corolla is luxurious, compare it to what the rest of the world drives), spend time with our loved ones, and engage in many entertaining activities each day.
But somewhere in the past we began to take this right for granted. As a result, we’ve stopped smelling the roses along the way in our journey through life. I can’t count the number of times I’ve ran across someone who has so many things to be grateful for, but instead focuses on the things he/she does not have in his/her life.
When we begin to focus on the few things we don’t have, and lose sight of all the gifts we have been blessed with, our ingratitude transforms itself into greed, lust, or even worse, misery.
My experience
Gratitude is a value I’ve been struggling to incorporate into my life for the past two years. I was reckless in my behavior, and had no consideration for anyone, or anything. I completely lacked appreciation for all that I was blessed with, and my actions overwhelmingly showed it. Perhaps this is a phase everyone passes through growing up, but I believe I had it worse than most.
I’ve come a long way in two years. Part of this growth I can attribute to maturing, but just as much of it is a result of adopting new paradigms. I now see gratitude in a totally new light. I view it as a way of life, rather than as something to be focused on momentarily. This perception has drastically improved the quality of my life on a day-to-day basis. Each day is a joyous occasion, regardless of if something horrible happens, or it’s the most fortunate day of my life.
Although it took me two years to reach this point, it certainly won’t take you as long. If you are willing to commit to taking a few simple actions each day, gratitude will become a way of life for you also.
Surface-level gratitude
Most human beings view gratitude as a momentary interruption in their thought process.
Before we sleep, we thank God for all of the good things we have in our life. Often times we complement this thanks with the request for more things. If we are truly grateful for what we already have, would we be asking for more? I think not.
Other times, it occurs to us that we are being so ungrateful, that we have no choice but to remind ourselves to be grateful. We confess that we were wrong in taking things for granted, and we tell ourselves that it will never happen again. The next day, to our dismay, we return to being our usual ungrateful selves. I know it’s frustrating. I’ve circled through that thought process many times.
Both examples above describe something I like to call “surface-level gratitude.” We are attempting to be grateful for specific things (material and beyond) in our life (money, relationships, success). If we were to translate this type of gratitude into words, it would look something like this:
- I am grateful for my relationships
- I am grateful for my health
- I am grateful for my success
- I am grateful for my income
- I am grateful for food and shelter
When we forget to be grateful, these are the affirmations we recite to ourselves. This makes us feel better, and deludes us into thinking we are being truly grateful. Life goes on, and so does this circular process. We go through it frequently, and forget about it soon after.
There is absolutely no fulfillment by looking at gratitude in this way. In order to really experience gratitude, it must be something that is permanent. It must be something that we carry with us everywhere we go.
How do we achieve permanence in our gratitude?
We must make it a way of life.
A new way of life
All of us have so many things to be grateful for. It doesn’t matter if you’re tremendously successful, or if you’re miserably poor. There are certain things we as human beings share in common at a basic level. We’ve all been granted many similar gifts at birth. When we are grateful for these gifts, we experience a much deeper level of gratitude. I like to call it “true gratitude.” If we learn to get in touch with it, each and every one of us can experience a more joyous, fulfilling, appreciative life.
To get in touch with “true gratitude”, we must begin to see the bigger picture, and focus on those gifts we have been granted at birth.
All of us have been given the gift of life.
All of us have been given the gift of nature.
All of us have been given the gift of the mind.
All of have been given the gift of a wondrous, supportive universe.
Once we internalize these truths, we can then experience a gratitude for existence itself. Everywhere we go, we will carry this gratitude with us. Each day we will wake up feeling grateful for the day ahead of us, regardless of our present circumstances.
For example, if we truly appreciate the gift of life, anything that comes our way will be viewed as a joyous experience. The next time someone treats us the wrong way, we will be grateful. The next time we are feeling sad, we will be grateful. The next time we feel tremendously successful, we will be grateful. Good or bad, we will understand that all experiences are a byproduct of being alive, and that they all contribute to our overall experience of life.
Making the transition
To shift our paradigm from one of “surface-level gratitude” to one of “true gratitude” we must learn to express gratitude for everything in our reality. The best way to do this is to focus your gratitude on things that you would never thought you would be grateful for. For example, if I’m taking a shower, I will say to myself, “I am grateful for the shiny metal on the shower head.”
Whenever something overwhelmingly negative is happening in your life, take a step back, and be grateful for it. Not only because it is an experience that will undoubtedly contribute to your growth, but also because it is another one of those byproducts of life itself.
Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous. However, if you do this often enough, soon what you’ll find is that you’ll no longer be saying, “I’m grateful for x;” instead you will simply be saying “I’m grateful.” The gratitude you are constantly feeling each day by focusing your attention on seemingly unimportant things will carry over to all areas of your life, and will slowly become a permanent, all encompassing form of being.
Do not utter words, live by them
Making the shift to “true gratitude” is by far one of the most empowering paradigm shifts I’ve made in my lifetime. Although I feel as though I haven’t completed the transition process completely yet, the progress I have made thus far has contributed to an enhanced experience of life itself.
Each day is joyous. Each day is a gift.
Commit to focusing your gratitude on anything and everything in your reality, and you will soon find that this gratitude has become a permanent state of being. You will no longer feel grateful, you will be grateful. You will no longer utter words of gratitude to yourself; you will live by them, as JFK once said. And in doing so, your life will be abundant in joy, fulfillment, and appreciation.
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