Gratitude as Virtue

"When asked if my cup is half-full or half-empty my only response is that I am thankful I have a cup." - Sam Lefkowitz

Today I decided to be grateful for several things, the first one being my job.  Yesterday was a little rough because it was Monday, which means it was an incredibly slow day.  I’m talking snail stepped in bubble gum slow.  Lots of folks are out on vacation, and generally there is always a lull in the already pitifully light workload around the office during the summer.

When things are incredibly slow, it’s easy to let myself feel whiny.  What am I doing here? Does this work define me as a person?  But then I was reminded today how grateful I am to have a job that I honestly do enjoy and allows me to afford an abundance of things, both necessary and frivolous.

"In our daily lives, we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but the gratefulness that makes us happy." 

- Albert Clarke

 But all that got me thinking, what is gratitude? Is it saying “thank you” when expected or appropriate?  Consider the following scenario:

Mom: Eat your peas.

Child: I don’t wanna.

Mom: You should be grateful for the opportunity to eat peas.

Child: I’d be more grateful for some ice cream!

Both child and mother in this case here misuse the term “grateful,” I believe.  It is perfectly possible to be grateful for the opportunity to eat peas/ available food and still prefer to not eat it.  By not wanting the peas, the child is not necessarily being ungrateful.

Gratitude is not simply a sentimental feeling, much in the same way patience is not a feeling.  I think the ability to remember to be grateful is learned, and can be something to strive for.  Thus gratitude is more like a virtue that shapes not only emotions and thoughts but actions and deeds as well.  In reflecting on this, I decided to do a little research and was struck by some of the things I found. 

Apparently, “Grateful people are happier, less depressed, less stressed, and more satisfied with their lives and relationships.  Grateful people have more positive ways of coping with the difficulties they experience in life, being more likely to seek support from other people, reinterpreted and grow from the experience, and spend more time planning how to deal with the problem. Grateful people also have less negative coping strategies, being less likely to try to avoid the problem, deny there is a problem, blame themselves, or cope through substance use. Grateful people sleep better.  Numerous studies suggest that grateful people are more likely to have higher levels of happiness and lower levels of stress and depression.”

Sounds like something worth pursuing, right?

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of the virtues but the parent of all others.” - Cicero

That’s pretty interesting, when you think about it.  Do all other virtues first stem off from the ability to recognize how much you have to be appreciated?  Does this often naturally lead one to thank an outside force larger than themselves?  God/ the universe/ chance/ fate?

A traditional Islamic saying states that “the first who will be summoned to paradise are those who have praised God in every circumstance.”  It was also suggested that profound gratitude is among the signs of true religion. 

"Gratitude is the heart's memory." - French proverb

It does ring true that anytime I am tempted to envy a neighbor for x,y,z or wish that my life looked more like ______, a quick list of the things to be grateful for can put it all back into perspective.  It seems then that gratitude is a virtue to be practiced at every opportunity, over things both great and small.

This is not about becoming someone who is constantly reminding people to look on the bright side or be thankful for the crappy hand they are dealt, but rather recalling (on some subconscious level) at all times that there is always something good to hold on to.  This does not mean, I think, that you have to see the upside to every situation, but rather dwell on the brighter spots instead of the dark ones and keep your priorities in a healthy place.

Know and appreciate what you have before you lose it.