Gratitude! The Greatest Quality for Peace Of Mind!
What is gratitude? It is a feeling of thankfulness and appreciation for the other person. We should always be grateful to all the people in the world. And the important thing is not just to have gratitude but to express your gratitude as well. Indeed, it is difficult to do so and especially in the modern world. To go to your neighbor and tell him, “I am thankful to you that you have been so supportive and helpful to us all our life,” is not something we are used to doing. If our servant does all the housekeeping and leaves for his home we are not used to saying, “Cheers! you have done a good job” although such a statement might make his day.
But let us think from our own side. How do you think we would feel when after completing a tough assignment, the other person smiles and tells us, “Well Done!” and on the contrary how would we feel if the same person turns his face away when it is time to leave. Expressing gratitude is in fact spreading positivity in the environment. Expressing gratitude is a sort of perfume that we can spread around us.
It is said that if you want to know the nature of a person, see how much respect he gives to people who are deprived of a luxurious life. Many people look down on people and even use humiliating language to such a section of society. Does it make any sense if they show gratitude to the rich people for their selfish needs and not respect the poor people?
There are times when our ego comes in our way and we are reluctant to show appreciation to other people. That is one of the reasons why there is little love between the boss and the employee or two colleagues in the same organization or two sportsmen from the same team. Again our nature is influenced by various factors in society like jealousy, hatred, fear, back-biting. These things always rub negative impressions on our minds. But we need to somehow break the pattern. If all the people in the organization speak negatively about the company, we can convince the crowd that the company is going through a tough phase but at least it provides employment to all of us.
A wonderful incident comes to my mind as I think about the expression of Gratitude. One day I went to an ATM to withdraw some money. It was the second time in a few days when the same ATM machine did not work. I got upset and told the security person, “Why don’t you do something about this machine? It seems useless and it is wasting so much of our precious time!”
But the security guard was deployed there for the last 5 years and considered the ATM machine as his friend. He told me, “This poor guy works hard 24 hours a day and has helped so many people. You should not use such harsh language for it!” It was a little strange, but it was also a kind of gratitude that may be a little bit insane.
A lot of scientific research has been done about the theory of expressing gratitude and the overall advantages it has for people who do so. Many people have importance in keeping a gratitude journal with us. Every day before we go to sleep we should make a list of 3 people whom we are grateful for making our day such a pleasant one(maybe the day might not be pleasant one but imagine that it could have been much worse). It will have a beneficial effect on our mind making us feel that there are good people around us and we had a great day.
From where should we start? We have to show gratitude to God for giving us such a beautiful life and blessing us with all the luxurious of the world. Would God get flattered if we express gratitude to him? Certainly not. But it would rub positive thoughts and feelings in us.
Let us take another example that will highlight the importance of showing gratitude. Imagine a person wins an election and goes on to become a minister. It is imperative that he will show gratitude to people and thank them for keeping faith in him. But what if the same person loses the election? In most cases, the person will become upset and will not interact with anybody. But the true person would be the one who would address the crowd, “I respect your opinion, and thank you for giving me an opportunity to serve you. I am disappointed that I could not live up to your expectation but I am sure that the new minister will fulfill all your expectations.” A true person is the one who shows gratitude to opponents even after defeat.
