The problem with gratitude

I was raised to always say “please” and “thank you”, a tradition I am trying to instill in my children who will hopefully pass down to their children. I don’t want my kids to say thank you automatically. I want their thank yous to be the result of the overflow of gratitude from their hearts.

“for out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” ~ Luke 6:45b

There are few attitudes which can so drastically change your outlook on life as one of gratefulness. Instead of complaining about having leftovers again, you can delight in the knowledge that your family has more than enough to eat. It is from this position of gratitude where you may be compelled to help others who are not so fortunate. But one must be careful not to give with the expectation of being the recipient of gratitude from those you help. That’s not generosity; that’s self-righteous manipulation. I grappled with this very realization while volunteering at a temporary shelter housing Katrina survivors.

Should people be grateful? Absolutely. But you can’t force anyone to be grateful anymore than you can force someone to be generous. They either are or they’re not. Compounding the problem is the fact that we live in a society where there is an ever-increasing atmosphere of entitlement.  Why should anyone feel grateful for something they believe they deserve in the first place?

Before this post spirals into a socio-economic-political-philosophical tangent (which incidentally, it did before I deleted most of what I typed here), I think what I’m so feebly trying to communicate here is best summed up in the following quote:

“Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have the right to expect.”
~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Honestly? I still have some work to do.

“In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.” ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

This post is part of the blog carnival on Gratitude, hosted by Bridget Chumbley. To read more, please visit her site.

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