Have you ever thanked your coffee pot for doing its job correctly?
How about your house plant for being pretty? (You have house plants, right? You know, oxygen, color and life inside the house? Clean(er) air?)
When did you last say a big Thank You to your Significant Other or Best Friend just for being in your life? Or to your shoes for protecting your feet? Or your car for working flawlessly on yesterday’s drive?
I do these things constantly. Yes, just this morning I said thankee’ to my Coffee Pot, as I poured my first mug of go-juice.(1) Well… what I really said was in Spanish [which I’m studying] but so what! It’s still an expression of gratitude.
Let me relate a story about gratitude to you, then I’ll further tell you why I make a habit of expressing (and feeling!) gratitude for everything I can.
There was once a pretty serious tradition in America — and in many other countries, though I don’t know where that tradition sits in other nations at the moment. In America there was a very wide spread act prior eating, of saying Grace, that is, expressing a true gratitude for what is happening, what you are receiving. [Note: a lot of people still practice this; I’m saying that it was once the majority of folks who did this.] That was before fast food, fast life styles, no time to sit still for that long. Also before Television made made eating in front of the TV common, before “it’s starting in a minute! Hurry up!!” happened.
I know it might be strange to think about, in this over-addicted-to-texting age, but people used to actually sit down to a meal together, hold hands, talk and laugh and even look at each other, while eating. Linger over the meal; tell jokes; catch up on things. This was how family memories were [sometimes] created. Also social skills including small talk which is a powerful social grease. Also better digestion than too many people “enjoy” today (partly from good/better spirits while eating, partly from taking your time while eating, instead of “wolfing it down.”
The point of this tale is that — coincidentally or not — seriously bad things began to happen to America about the same time this practice fell off; America’s social structure and economic fortunes began to degrade at the same time(2).
Ok, I can not in good ethic claim any causal relationship there. The most I can say is those things happened at the same time(3). Still… it is interesting, yes?
Alright, on the practical side, I practice gratitude because it makes me happier to do so. It is constantly alerting me to the things that did go right, and de-emphasizes the things that didn’t. Or at least puts the things that didn’t go ideally into a better perspective. I promise you, for everything that “goes wrong” a hundred or a thousand other things in your life went right, even if you don’t (yet) see them; even if you don’t (yet) believe it.
News media, politicians running races, DA’s looking to climb the ladder, all run on Doom and Gloom, which has been the tradition since Western Civilization (so to speak) was invented. It’s one of the dis-eases of our times. But it’s illusion. Tell your coffee pot thank you! (or even try a “thank’ee” once in a while: might make you laugh!) when it does its job right, which is pretty much always, isn’t it?
You’ll find other things that go right also. Your tooth brush did its job rather well this morning, yes? Your shoes are covering your feet as they were designed to do, yes? Do you use glasses or contacts? Do they let you see better? Be grateful!
Important note: however don’t just say thank-you in a perfunctory fashion; just saying because you think you have to now or with an agenda (i.e., thinking about what it will gain you). That’s not gratitude. Mean it, when you say it. If you can’t actually feel the gratitude at that moment, then try to feel it — that works too. Or… here’s the very minimum: do it consciously, do it knowing you have chosen in this moment to say thank you because something is good. (That’s also called mindfulness and is an incredibly powerful practice all in itself.) Eventually you will feel the gratitude, and, oddly enough, your life will get better all the way around, no matter how good it is already. Go figure…
Again: you must try to feel the gratitude; expressing it is a way of nailing it in, making it more real for yourself… and certainly can’t but help those around you. Even your coffee pot might smile — preferably when you back is turned… but who knows? 🙂
Enjoy what goes right, because you are truly surrounded all the time by things that are and have gone right! It’s just hard to see that because the social norms (the programming of the herd) don’t allow for it. You can train yourself to see these things, though, and it’s time well spent.
Thank’ee!
Footnotes? Holy Advanced Grammar, Batman!
(1) Actually, “thankee'” is a Stephen King-ism — from the Dark Tower series, though, of course, it goes back in history much farther than that — (by the way, King holds a degree in English, besides being one of the finest living authors in any genre).
(2) Yes, America’s social structure, level of health, level of economic wealth, and many other things, have degraded seriously over the last several decades (70, 80 years, there abouts). But that’s another conversation, and not something I’m inclined to try to convince anyone of, at least not head-on; I’d rather each see it — or not — for themselves.
(3) That’s called correlation, instead of causation — something the news media is constantly mixing up, implying causation where none can be proven; it’s a powerful propaganda tool. For example, did you know there really is a relationship (correlation) between sun spot activity and variations in fashion? True, true, true. Do sunspots cause changes in fashions? Extremely unlikely. Why is there a correlation then? No one knows — yet. Most likely, though, it’s some other factor as yet not noticed. You’ll see this sort of thing all over the news, once you start looking for it, “such and such and therefore this happened!” If you stop to think about it for yourself, you’ll probably hear yourself saying “that doesn’t follow at all.”