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How I Learned To Become More Grateful

Gratitude is all the rage these days.

So, what are you grateful for?

How long can you make your list?

How often do you say “thank you?”

How often do you stop whatever it is that you’re doing to appreciate the moment?

Do me a favor…

Stop reading this right now, close your eyes, and be grateful for as many things as you can for the next few moments.

Just start rattling them off in your mind…

……..

…………

…………….

How’d that go? Do you feel any different?

I like to think that I was born into gratitude. My birthday, being November 26, happens to land on Thanksgiving every few years.

Now, I understand the controversial nature of this day. There is no denying the countless atrocities inflicted upon the original inhabitants of this land.

If we so choose, we could dive right into the debate of how this actually became a holiday.

We could take offense to the vanilla, public school story of the kind and generous Natives feeding the poor, cold and starving Pilgrims. Or we could talk about how those same Pilgrims probably pilfered the corn and grain stores of those Natives.

If we want to get dicey, we could dig into the massacre at the Green Corn Festival of 1637 where 700 men, women and children of the Pequot tribe were slaughtered while celebrating their own “Thanksgiving.”

I will swiftly remove myself from this debate. I’m no historian; I’m just an appreciative dude trying to find more ways to feel grateful.

All genocide aside, it’s cool that our good ol’ American calendar offers a day where we can stay home from work and be grateful. I know its not necessarily viewed in this light by most Americans, but wouldn’t it be great if it were?

Thanksgiving could use a rebranding. Ditch the ridiculous pilgrim shoes and the unlikely turkey theme. Let’s focus on what’s really important…parades of blown up cartoon characters sponsored by department stores and slightly concussed man-beasts smashing each other for glory.

Wait, that can’t be right…

Back to the discussion at hand; GRATITUDE.

What is it?

What does gratitude feel like?

It’s not quite happy. It’s not quite sad. It’s its own thing.

Besides our little exercise moments ago, when do you usually feel gratitude?

For me, the more I pay attention, the more grateful I am.

As a teenager, I found myself deeply enraptured by the customs and practices of Judaism. This was a very unlikely scenario due to my secular upbrining.

My questioning Christian mother and non-practicing Jewish father provided a broad and inclusive environment for thier children. This made my fervent religiosity both naive and ill-conceived.

It brought an undue strain on my supportive, yet profoundly unreligious family. As a bonus, it produced a wholly unrecommended flavor of zealotry within myself. It only lasted a few years and I learned so much; so water under the bridge…right Mom and Dad?

Not surprising, diving head first into a very conventional religious tradition left a strong taste of bitter herbs in my mouth. Yet, it did introduce me to a beautiful custom that I carry with me to this day.

Before every meal, religious Jews recite a prayer called HaMotzi. The literal translation goes: “Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the Universe who brings forth bread from the earth.”

I guess Yaweh didn’t see celiac disease coming. Typical.

Anyway, I still, to this day, offer a moment of gratitude before every meal. The only difference is that I no longer thank any particular deity for the meal.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to feed this fabulously complex meat machine that houses the miraculously conscious awareness capable of gratitude.

Because really?!

This is happening?!

There’s all these delicious things that grow and swim and roam all over this spinning hunk of water and rock hurtling itself around a magically contained nuclear explosion?!

Really?!

And all those growing and swimming and roaming things just so happen to be made up of precisely everything that we all need to survive?! (By “we,” of course, I’m referring to all the growing, swimming, and roaming things doing this Earth dance together.)

That’s amazing!

No, that’s flabbergastingly stupendous!!!

Is there a god or gods responsible for all this?

Who cares?!?!

I don’t find it necessary to direct my appreciation toward anything in particular.

The act of feeling profoundly grateful for this astounding physical manifestation seems to work fine.

Because it’s not only about saying thanks for the grand, meticulous perfection of the cosmos. Gratitude on that massive scale has a trickle-down effect. It seeps down into the most mundane moments of this human experiment as well.

When I’m grateful for the meal before me and all the nutritious critters on my plate, I find myself becoming grateful for the server that brought the plate to my table.

The electrician who wired the restaurant to keep the food cold and fresh.

The workers involved in the construction of the refrigeration device.

The truck driver that delivered the food.

The farmer who grew the food and the workers who harvested it.

Then there’s the craftspeople that made the plates.

The artists who designed the cutlery and the miners who dug up the metals to make them.

The factory workers who assembled the tables and chairs.

The people who built the looms that wove the table cloths and napkins

Those who installed the hardwood floors, the craftspeople who planed the floors, and the good folks that built the planers.

On and on and on and on and on…

And that’s only stopping to thank some of the humans involved in that restaurant experience. There are countless microorganisms, plants, bacteria, minerals and animals to thank as well.

The buddhists call this interdependent co-arising. It’s no joke!

Who and what we are could not BE without everything else doing what it does.

For that, I am grateful.

Of course, there are times when my rose colored glasses turn a nasty shade of shit brown.

Being a human on this planet, currently and historically, has been a challenging task. To comlicate matters further, some lives are more challenging than others. And some of us popped out of holes that carry more privilege.

I, for one, can’t imagine what it would be like to have been born under the reign of a warlord. To have my family blown to bits before my eyes. To not know where my next meal will come from, nor recall when was the last time I ate.

I shutter to think of the deplorable acts inflicted upon my brothers and sisters by my brothers and sisters.

Yet, Earthly life persists.

Blood pumps through my veins, a stranger offers a subtle smile, the sun rises on the eastern horizon, and gravity saves us from the endless vacuum.

Somehow, when we dig deep enough, there is always something to be grateful for.

I think Abraham Lincoln said that…

…I said that.

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