As with Leadership Characteristics, tackled in an earlier essay, much has been written on Gratitude.  While I do not intend to compete with Oprah and Eckhard Tolle on this topic, I do have a take on gratitude that has been bubbling around for a while.  I’d like to discuss it with you.

It’s only fitting that the formative thoughts on this essay happened while discussing life with Trish and my sister, Wendy, during a week-long stay at my timeshare in Aruba.  It’s a little hard not to feel grateful for what you have while sitting on the beach at sunset, sipping a mango-tini and being served the best scallops you’ve ever eaten.  Spending a week in Aruba is a once-in-a-lifetime, dream vacation for many.  For countless others it’s even outside of the realm of possibility.  I go there for a week every year, unless I’ve decided I have somewhere better to go.  I am grateful for this opportunity and for the station in life that I’ve achieved that make this possible.  But that’s not what I want to talk about when I talk about “gratitude”.

Sure, Sherri, it’s easy for you to be grateful.  You were born into a position of privilege in this country as a white child in a middle class home, had a great education, chose a lucrative field of work and had countless unbelievably lucky opportunities.  You were fired before your 54^th birthday and yet were able to happily slide into retirement.  Don’t freakin’ talk to me about “gratitude”.

Oh, but I will!  Because that’s not the type of gratitude I want to talk about.  Look, I know I have had countless advantages but there are many people more advantaged than I am that are totally miserable and have made a mess of their lives.  Just watch Entertainment Tonight or scan the tabloid headlines in the supermarket.  When I talk about gratitude, I’m not talking about privilege or wealth or even about hard work to take advantage of those lucky breaks. 

All the discussion along those lines is about gratitude as a comparative measure, almost as a punitive tool: 

“Eat your dinner.  There are starving children in the world.” 

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself.  You have so much more than so many people.  You should be grateful.”

“I know you wrecked your car, but be grateful that it wasn’t worse.” 

“Get off the couch and exercise!  At least you can.  Think of all the people who can’t exercise.  You should be more grateful.” 

We’ve all beat ourselves up numerous times with thinking like that above.  But that’s not really gratitude.  That’s a rank order of privilege.  Should you keep things in perspective?  Yes.  Should you also recognize that someone’s pain is their pain, regardless of comparative measures?  Yes again.

I started to flesh out a different meaning of “gratitude” listening to a meditation given by Deepak Chopra.  This particular meditation was part of a series he did with Oprah entitled “Manifesting Grace through Gratitude”.  (Mindfulness Meditation, while something of a recent fad, is a practice that kept me from climbing walls during my professional days.  Now it helps me fall asleep.)  Somewhere during that 22 part collection of 10 minute meditations, Deepak said something that blew me away.  True gratitude, he said (and I’m paraphrasing), is not about comparing yourself and what you have to others.  True gratitude is about recognizing all the abundance around us every day.

Think about that for a minute.  We, as human beings, are incredible creatures biologically and otherwise.   Anyone who has taken a biology or biochemistry class knows that even the simplest protozoan is a complex miracle. Humans are absolutely amazing beings!  We think, talk, love, learn and grow with our complex brains.  Even the most annoying, frustrating, seemingly “worthless” person is an absolute marvel.  Similarly, the world around us is filled with the abundance and beauty of nature—the sunshine, the rain, the plants and animals.  We are blessed just to be who we are and with every breath we take.  I know this sounds like crunchy granola speak from someone that has no worries in the world.  And I DO understand that unless your basic needs for food, shelter and personal safety are met that it is a challenge to see the abundance around us all the time.  However, I doubt anyone reading this essay has much of an issue with the bottom rung of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (food, shelter, security). 

This is the challenge that I have with respect to gratitude.  On a beautiful, sunny day with the birds chirping and time to read and to think, I don’t have problems feeling grateful.  I have problems when I’ve got a pounding headache and everything and everyone is getting on my last nerve.  Or when I watch too much of the news and get this helpless feeling and anxiety about such pervasive hate and distrust and evil in the world. Or when I am witness to too much heartache and pain in people I love.  Those, though, are the times we need to learn to see and feel the abundance around us and feel that basic gratitude for life and our world.  Not because it could be worse, but because it couldn’t be better!  We are surrounded by so much and are such miracles ourselves!  Oh, how I want to able to feel that all the time!

I mentioned earlier that the foundational thoughts for this essay formed in Aruba.  I find it equally fitting that the final edits on this essay are happening almost six months later during the Jewish High Holy Days (the 10 days inclusive of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur).  These are days of significant introspection for me.  I take stock of myself, look back over the last year and think forward to the coming year.  The comparisons I draw are not external.  I do not make comparisons with other people.  The measure I take of myself is internal—versus what I expect of myself.  My goals are around personal improvement, looking inward.  Gratitude comes from there and there alone.

We’ve all seen the stories of the desperately poor or disabled or however unfortunate being amazingly positive and optimistic and/or doing unbelievable acts of giving.  They aren’t like that (necessarily) because they see someone worse off than them.  They have that attitude and do those things because they are grateful for the life they have, for the abundance they see around them, and the fundamental need to give to and help others.  Let’s all work to focus more on the magic of the world we live in.  There’s something to the cliché to “stop and smell the roses”. That is true gratitude.