GRATITUDE: Is thank you enough?

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was ‘thank you’ that would suffice.

Meister Eckhart

If you happen to be feeling even slightly sorry for yourself or a tad low in spirits,  that old maxim to, ‘Just consider how many people are worse off than you are,’ has never yet filled my cup of cheer.  Perhaps because considering how many people are worse off, simply adds to my general misery and woe.  It serves as a gloomy reminder of  how tough the world can be, how little you seem able to make a difference and piles on any feelings of guilt, helplessness or angst you might be encountering.   Especially these last three, none of which add a spring to your step.

But on the other hand, that old adage,  ‘Count your blessings’, is always worth applying to the situation. The catch here is to give it a go, no matter how clichéd it might be.  I’m  well aware it’s easy to dismiss this as simply as some well-worn-do-gooders homily, but it does actually work.  Even a brief ponder on two or three blessings can help to ease a feeling of being fed-up and miserable.

Taking a firm hold on one’s emotions and spending a  quiet moment pondering upon the good things you do possess can turn things around faster than butter melts in the sun.  At least, that’s been my experience of finding a way to deal with the days when one’s life seems to be in  rather a morass.

It can take a bit of practise before the results are as swift as you’d like.  Easy enough to think of one or two good things, then the rapidly blossoming  list of woes can quickly take over. Nevertheless, it’s much simpler, much more direct and far more energy enhancing to consider how many things  there are for which you can genuinely feel gratitude rather  than continuing to rummage around in the mire.  As Oscar Wilde said, ‘We are all of us in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars.’

One day,  not feeling very perky, I decided I’d do some personal star gazing.  Since writers write, the obvious answer was to write something.  What about a thank you letter?  A real, honest bread and butter letter?  No lingering, no pondering and do it in an absolute maximum of three minutes.  It was a good test of  G. K. Chesterton’s belief that, “I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”

The thank you letter contained lots of things about the love of family and friends, companion animals, music, flowers, trees, and beauty in all its myriad and amazing forms. Plus very practical things like being warm, having food on the table and enough money to get by on.  But please believe me,  I’m very well aware that without the last point, honest to goodness gratitude can be difficult to rustle up.

However, what became clear to me as I looked at the list, with which I will not bore you, were the heartfelt thanks for the sheer pleasure of being able to move, see and hear.  To say nothing of the ability to smell Chanel Première (even if not always affordable) or  the less attractive scent of burnt soup congealing thickly on the stove.  (Never underestimate the power of the nose.)

My list quickly showed me that many of the things for which I was truly grateful were only possible thanks to having a body that functioned, however imperfectly at times.  Being able to see, hear, smell, taste, touch,  get up, sit down, and just put one foot in front of the other and walk…oh my!  How wonderful is that. Especially after seventy-seven years in a body.

Anyone who’s ever lost any of the above, be it temporarily or permanently, soon develops a new awareness.  To  move freely without pain, or at least not too much of it, and use all five senses  when you want to, believe me, is a cause for deep gratitude.  And having just spent several hours in a dentist’s chair, I’m definitely giving heartfelt thanks for every aspect of modern technology, pain killers and expertise of the highest order.

Although of course, positive or not, and grateful or not, it doesn’t prevent me -or doubtless many others – from  getting discouraged or  low in spirits.  Or  having a brief wallow in the pond of self-pity, ‘brief’ being the operative word here. It’s best not to linger too long in those dank waters.  I can’t give myself too many excuses for floundering about in them, because slowly, at longest last, I’m learning to pull myself out almost as fast as a terrier down a foxhole.  For that, I give a very big, ‘Thank You!’