Scott Free Thinking

It is interesting the different ways in which you can approach gratitude. Gratitude is similar to my outlook on good manners - if you have good manners, it really can depend on when, where, how, and how often you use them to determine if they really are good, giving more than one party involved a real benefit. Gratitude, like anything else, can be misused and abused.

One thing does seem certain:

Gratitude sent out is gratitude received, and whom ever receives gratitude is receiving a positive glow. While we could all sit back and say the world could always be a little more thankful, I think it is important to realize that the true thanks in which we are seeking comes directly from ourselves. If the world is not reacting to you the way you would like, that probably means that you are not reacting to yourself the way that you would like.

Just recently I celebrated my birthday, and on that day I called up several of my ex-girlfriends and a couple of my old friends and wished them happiness in their lives. My ex-girlfriend Misty remarked, “isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?” in regards to me thanking her and wishing her well. My answer was something along the lines of no, it is not supposed to be the other way around. After all, if it were not for those who stood next to you, where and what would you ever be? To my girls, especially, I have them to thank more than anyone else. Or perhaps, I could thank my guitar, for granting me sublimation sanity for all the times I thought I would snap and cry or break something. Yes, that guitar was always there for me too. And no matter what, each of these mentioned items had good times paired with it.

In pairing with gratitude, simple gratitude can also double for forgiveness. By extending an outward energy of positivity toward those who you are thankful to, you are also sending very warm and inviting messages to them. Those messages of gratitude can double, to them, as messages of forgiveness from you. Or perhaps if there is nothing for you to forgive someone for, then they will be triggered to forgive you for something they feel you may have done to them. Even people who are socially difficult, and refuse to take that simple responsibility of being responsible for their own feelings, can melt into a pot of newfound love when thanks and warmth comes their way from the pit of a negatively dark coated past.

Gratitude goes beyond people. Gratitude can just as easily be extended to the universe, to God, to your car, to your clothes, to any of your material possessions, or even to other entities. The strange point behind gratitude extended toward anything divine, spiritual, or even inanimate objects is that you will notice that that positive energy does indeed make a beneficial difference. If for no one else, then at least for yourself. It almost seems as if it does not even matter much if you are feeling grateful for anything in your life, so long as you are feeling that gratefulness for something!

A common rule of thumb you might be able to hold up steady during your daily routine would be this: if you are already wealthy in many areas in your life, then chances are you might notice that you have a particular outlook that affects such a thing, and likewise, if you have a poorly put together scenario, then you might try to put down on paper what you are grateful for. Some might claim that you can “thank and thank until the cows come home, but it won’t do you any good.” But I say ignore and refuse admission to those claims. Thanking, true thanking, will do your heart a great deal of good, even if no one else is getting a benefit. But an interesting flip side of that coin is: someone will eventually get benefit if you have benefit already. An analogy to go with that might be, “even if you have saved your money to be a millionaire, you will spend a dollar eventually.”

On a very large level, the residual gratitude effect can become incredible and amazing. If the whole world was operating off of a positive energy of gratitude, then chances are we would see the ratios of positive to negative characteristics getting skewed. The homeless would be less homeless, the hungry less hungry, the depressed happier than before. Similarly, the more negativity is felt by yourself, the more that energy tends to be transferred to others around you. I notice that when I am in a bad mood, my bad mood can tend to rub off on the people I interact with.

And gaining this sort of energy is not that difficult to do. One reason why it can be easy is that it does not have any objective basis. No matter where you are, what you have, what it is you are dealing with, there can always be something to be grateful for. Are you poor? At least I have my health! Are you sad? At least I’m not dead! Are you dying? At least it’ll be over soon! The energy for gratefulness simply never runs out, never goes dry, never falls back to empty. There is always a fresh reservoir from which to draw from.

So whatever happens, remember what you have to be thankful for, no matter where you are.  Thank you so much for reading.