GRATITUDE
You know that wonderful, warm-fuzzy feeling that comes over you when someone goes out of his or her way to spoil you, feed you, treat you, welcome you, bless you, support you or help you out? Of course you do. The feeling is gratitude, and it feels even better when you express it!
Gratitude is the recognition of the unearned increments of value in one’s experience. Every country in the world has a way of saying “thank you.” This is because gratitude is an inherent quality that resides within each human being, and is triggered and expressed spontaneously in a variety of different contexts. Gratitude crosses all boundaries—creed, age, vocation, gender, and nation—and is emphasized by all the great religious traditions.
Gratitude is essentially the recognition of the unearned increments of value in one’s experience – the acknowledgment of the positive things that come our way that we did not actively work toward or ask for. The International Encyclopedia of Ethics defines gratitude as “the heart’s internal indicator on which the tally of gifts outweighs exchanges,” a definition that echoes the notion of unearned increments. The connection to the concept of gifts is a natural one. The Latin root of the word gratitude is grata or gratia—a given gift—and from this same root we get our word grace, which means a gift freely given that is unearned.
Gratitude is a feeling that spontaneously emerges from within us and can be followed with an emotion. However, it is not simply an emotional response; it is also a choice we make. We can choose to be grateful, or we can choose to be ungrateful and to take our gifts and blessings for granted or as an entitlement. As a choice, gratitude is an attitude or disposition. As writer Alexis de Tocqueville once described it, gratitude is “a habit of the heart.” Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk, reminds us that “gratefulness is the inner gesture of giving meaning to our life by receiving life as gift.” M. J. Ryan’s classic book, Attitudes of Gratitude, supports the idea that gratitude is a stance we voluntarily take. The daily practice of gratitude keeps the heart open regardless of what comes our way and our minds in readiness for kindness and other positive virtues.
Gratitude as Virtue
Virtues are qualities that support the inherent goodness. Gratitude is both a social and a theological virtue. The Hebrew scriptures, the New Testament, and the Qur’an all cite gratitude as central among virtues. The cultivation of gratitude develops character, the embodiment of desired virtues. The advice to cultivate character by expanding one’s capacity for gratitude is time-honored wisdom. The art of maintaining a grateful disposition engenders other virtues such as generosity, humility, compassion, wisdom, joy, integrity, and trust. This results in mindfulness. This disposition of mindfulness, of being aware of and thankful for our blessings, helps cultivate our virtues and significantly diminishes, or can even eradicate, any obstacles to gratitude we may face.
There are several words that arise repeatedly when discussing gratitude, all of which reflect states that are related to it. While gratitude is both a feeling and an attitude, thankfulness is the demonstrative expression of it, whether extended to ourselves or others. We can express thanks in words—spoken or written—or in deeds, by extending time, resources, or gifts to support people in unexpected ways or to help those in need. Appreciation is the recognition of that which makes us feel grateful, and can also be expressed internally or externally.
Gratefulness recognition + appreciation = kindness gifts towards others and self! Thankfulness all around for the blessings is then experienced.
