Gratitude – make it contagious

“Most people repay small favours, acknowledge medium ones, and repay greater ones - with ingratitude”. These are the words of wisdom by the 18th-century scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin.

The world owes gratitude for his scientific inventions and observations, including the adventurous kite experiment that he conducted with the natural phenomenon of thunderbolt through which he verified the nature of electricity in lightning that finally led to lighting of our homes and the other miraculous uses and boons of electric power thus brought under man’s control.

Gratitude is a sign of humbleness and a virtue bestowed upon humans to be able to recognise, appreciate, and repay others’ gestures of goodwill towards them. With regard to the gratitude, there is a joke about cats and dogs that conveys so decidedly how this concept is favoured in the animal world. A dog says to his master, “You pet me, you feed me, and you love me. You must be God.” A cat says, “You pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, and you love me> I must be God.” Unfortunately, in our society these days, there are more cats than dogs.

Melody Beattie, popular American author and a household name in counselling, has, wisely, observed in her book Gratitude that “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life; it turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

BUILDING BLOCKS

Two little words - thank you; a contagious smile; a delicate nod; a warm hand shake or even a twinkle reaching out to an amicable eye contact, all these are the building blocks of the gratitude. But how many among us care to reciprocate favours with some sign of indebtedness? Unfortunately, in most of situations, we take things for granted. Gratitude does not always come naturally, and in this materialistically-metamorphosed society, most of us value only the things received rather than the feelings that embody them. Even the appreciation we extend in formality remains merely meaningless words devoid of any feelings to live by them.

Famous English author Mark Twain once wrote: “If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous; he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.” This ironical situation is due to the fact that most of us assert our rights and compete in laying claims on what we do not have and belongs to others but are not gracious or feel responsible to share our abundance with others who need it. We have ceased to appreciate what the creator and nature has given us. Rather than having gratitude for the perfect world we have been blessed with, we are ever striving to spoil it and render it uninhabitable for our coming generations. As goodness and compassion are the fast-depleting virtues of mankind, we suspect the other’s good intentions in reaching out to assist us and also feel that life owes us fulfilment of every desire. Thus we are not thankful from our hearts or reciprocate with any warmth the goodwill shown by others.

The importance of gratitude has been recognised and stressed upon in all societies and religions. Gratitude holds a very high place in the Hindu tradition. It says that we must be grateful for everything that we get, but we must not expect any gratitude from others or we should give without expectation of anything in return since if we do something expecting the other person to be grateful, then we become miserable if we don’t get what we expect.

IMPORTANCE

In Islam, gratitude or shukr is given much importance, and emphasis is laid about expressing thanks and appreciation to those who do any favour for us. As Allah or God has given us everything, a Muslim, when asked how he is, his grateful reply always is ‘Alhamdulillah’ or praise be to Allah. Christianity also lays importance of gratitude or thanksgiving.

The story of ten lepers healed by Christ where only one among them returned to give thanks and the legend where two angels are sent with baskets – one to collect requests and the other to collect thanksgiving - and one of the angels returns with the basketful of requests and the other returns with the empty basket of thanksgiving, try to put back those who have strayed on the virtuous path of life paved with gratitude since “ingratitude is a crime more despicable than revenge, which is only returning evil for evil, while ingratitude returns evil for good”.

Bimal Saigal is a retired Indian diplomat.