GRATITUDE: THE ANTIDOTE FOR LIFE
The Persian poet Sadi wrote in thirteenth century “I never lamented about the vicissitudes of time or complained of the turns of fortune except on the occasion when I was barefooted and unable to procure slippers. But when I entered the great mosque of Kufah with a sore heart and beheld a man without feet I offered thanks to the bounty of God, consoled myself for my want of shoes…”.
Gratitude is one of the wonderful things that requires us to look beyond ourselves. It’s just a fact that, especially in the west, we have become so accustomed to having our demands met, we forget that millions of people go to sleep each night for want of the very things we take for granted.
Did you know that the United Nations estimates that a full 25,000 people around the world die every day from hunger and hunger related diseases?
That same body estimates that there are 1.6 billion people world-wide who are either out and out homeless or lacking adequate shelter. These people are suffering while we in the west complain that our neighbor has more than we do. We feel persecuted because there are people out there with gobs of money that we don’t have. We have convinced ourselves there the fault lies with them and not with us. For many this brings on depression. What they fail to see, is the absolute abundance available to them.
There are those too, who have very legitimate reasons for being upset or depressed. Childhood trauma, loss of loved ones, genuine injustices, however even these people can be brought through the hard times with the knowledge of just how fortunate we are. Personally, I lost both of my children in a car accident. My son was just shy of his seventh birthday, my wife was pregnant with my daughter (we lost the baby six weeks after my son passed). It took a while to get to this point. To get to where I can recognize just how fortunate I was to have had my son in the first place.
I had lived in a mind-set where I went to bed every night begging God to please kill me in my sleep. This wasn’t a prayer I took lightly. I didn’t want to kill myself I just didn’t want to be me anymore. My self-pity oozed from every pore of my being. I believed the magnitude of my problems were so vast that no one’s could compare. I would have traded lives with anyone sight unseen. While the pain of my loss was considerable, I was failing to see the wonderful gifts that were present in my life. I had my son for nearly seven years. In that time, I loved that boy like there was no tomorrow. I was excited, hell ecstatic, to meet his sister. I had been given the gift of being able to appreciate my children in the moment. It didn’t take losing them to understand how blessed I was to have them. I had a good union job as a telephone repair person in Brooklyn New York (shout out CWA local 1109!) and was able to provide a very comfortable lifestyle for my family. I was blessed, still am. I will never have Oprah Winfrey or Bill Gates money. I don’t need it (truth be told neither do they). That doesn’t concern me.
Having realized this at the beginning and end of each day I now give thanks. I always have something to be thankful for if only the roof over my head, the clothes on my back and the food in my belly. And, of course, the understanding that millions do not have these things and there but for the grace of God go I. I pray for them as well. It’s really hard to be pissy about my great life when I begin and end my day with gratitude and understanding of just how fortunate I am to have it that way.
