Unmatched Investment opportunity - Gratitude

Down Memory Lane

My wife and I, try and find time, both in the morning and evening to sit together and talk to each other. Ever since I left active service, it has become much easier to do so. Quietness of the area we live in and our two wooden chairs provide all the comforts required. Many who know us, ask, “What do you both keep talking so much about?”

Besides the mundane, the conversation is mostly about our lives gone by, the good and bad times, the beautiful and trying moments, the calms and roughs we sailed through, of the people we met and their contributions to our journey. Our morning conversations help us plan start and run the day reasonably well. The evening ones are mostly journeys down memory lane. It fills us with a sense of gratitude and helps us re-experience blissful moments. It also helps us view the tough and trying times we survived with a sense of detached wisdom.

Often there would be a reference to someone who had been nice to us. Within a day or two of such reference, we end up calling the person. I make it a point to recount the incident, to that individual and express our gratitude for the act of kindness, the help or support rendered. Most would have forgotten their act of kindness but on being reminded, the response is always one of immense happiness. Everybody loves it. If at all there’s a silence, its momentary and only for loss of words.

 

Call it by Any Name

Emotion or trait? Debates notwithstanding, gratitude is an attitude, a nutrient, that enriches one’s own life. It dramatically reduces negativity within, increases happiness, enhances sense of wellbeing and improves physical health. Gratitude is an emotion that embodies voluntary acceptance of having received something, material or otherwise, real or imaginary, from someone other than oneself.

Though it need not necessarily, manifest as words or deeds, gratitude effectively influences all words and deeds of the individual towards the individual who is worthy of gratitude. Though expressions of gratitude seem to close a ‘take and give’ transaction loop, it actually initiates a self-sustaining and reinforcing cycle and creates strong symbiotic interpersonal relationships that defy geographical and cultural barriers.

 

Where It Starts

Gratitude commences when others’ contributions to our life is acknowledged and accepted. What is recognised as worthy of being grateful for, is purely a personal choice. An assistance given when required, an act of kindness when expected or least expected, a promise kept, few good words when we are down and struggling, a supporting stance in a situation, in fact anything could be considered worthy of gratitude. Such positive strokes make us feel valued, wanted, connected and cared for. Expressions of gratitude depend on our choice of canvas, colour and brush.

But being grateful only to those and only for the visibly good or positive support we received, is an incomplete version of gratitude. We also tend to deny gratitude to our detractors and even those who didn’t meet our expectations.  

 

Bad Is As Good

Our detractors reveal for us, our chinks. We might really be oblivious of the chinks in our armour, or we might gloss over them. At times, we may not consider worthy of addressing them or having known about it may be deliberately hiding it or just not giving the importance due. The truth is; chinks are chinks and can let us down.

Our detractors show us the true mirror and lay bare our chinks. The challenges they create and seemingly unsurmountable hurdles they design, eventually help us strengthen our resolve, fathom our reserves, open new vistas of opportunities and bring out the best in us. Their actions could  change the very course of our lives. But the destination we are headed to, remains our choice to make. If we are alive and bold enough, we can make that choice whenever, even now. Blaming detractors for our state is akin to handing over the reins of life to someone else.

Our detractors are worthy of gratitude for they embolden us and temper us like steel in fire. Why should individuals who fortify us be denied gratitude? Why should those, who made us realise our worth be unworthy of gratitude?

Consider our detractors as challengers, for its they who challenged us to discover our true strong selves. They show us who is in control of our lives. It removes the anger, the animosity we carry against them and cleanse us, of toxins within.

 

Expectation Exclusions

Many compare acts of kindness or assistance received with what they had expected from the donor. Burdened with minimal or negligible knowledge of others’ capabilities, compulsions and limitations, expectations are broths cooked only from our perspective. In a stringent regime of comparison, the chance of expectations being met is the least.  Those entrapped in the snare of comparison unfortunately render themselves helpless and incapable of gratitude. They kill gratitude even before it is conceived.

Gratitude is not a compulsion to repay or an act to bring closure to a perceived emotional debt. When the focus is on returning a favour at the earliest, people are only eager to close the deal! It’s only like paying for services rendered. Attempts to offset what has been received from someone, by an act of ours towards that individual is bookkeeping. This has nothing to do with gratitude. Such persons actually inflict injury on themselves in their attempt to be ‘debt free’. Such individual’s life would be full of ‘sundry debtor’ entries for he would believe himself to be the ‘sundry creditor’ everywhere.  They make up the bulk of the unhappy lot of people. Gratitude is not a soulless return of favours received. Gratitude is an emotion that comes from within.

 

Experiencing Gratitude

Contrary to commonly held belief that gratitude is indebtedness, it is actually a liberating experience. It adds value to what has been given and received besides establishing a bond between the donor and recipient. It is a state of mind that helps connect people. Gratitude establishes mutually beneficial connects between people without creating dominant and subordinate partners. It sows happiness within and outside and reaps it manifold. Grateful people create beneficial networks and draw more into it. In a world where ungratefulness is becoming the norm, gratitude is nectar that helps forge strong relationships. Gratitude opens up unimaginable opportunities!

The process however, starts from within. It starts with our deliberate attempts to identify people, whom we should be grateful to and letting them know of it. It needs a purposeful journey down memory lane.

Gratitude Journey

Journey down memory lane, reveals both well-wishers and challengers. Well-wishers give us the good feel and at times even life lines. As we move along, we would keep finding such individuals. There would be few, who seem to remain forever as our pillars for strength, others who in a single act can fill you with gratitude for life. There would be some, who by their mere presence makes you rich strong and grateful. There would also be many architects of turbulence who by their acts forced us into the roughs. But none of us, could have reached where we have, without them. Both benefactors and challengers are worthy of gratitude.

Call up benefactors and say ‘thank you’ and reenergise relationships. Rename detractors as challengers, call them up and say ‘thank you’. We  may end up delivering a miserable soul from agony and establish a relationship new or at least rid ourselves of the baggage of animosity and anger.

Investment Mantra

It is surprising that a ‘returns’ obsessed society as ours has remained blind to this investment opportunity called gratitude. It demands abysmally low investments, offers assured zero risks and guarantees very high yield. It does good within and beyond.

Living amidst countless investment gurus, incessantly advertising many ways to become rich, we are tempted to follow one or more, only to realise a little late that the dreams for which we had toiled all along still remain distant. 

Take this advice. Invest in gratitude.

Reap rewards of happiness and a strong network of benefactors.

Reinvest and stay invested.

Become the happiest person you have ever known.

Point to Ponder!

Heard the story of the Lion and Mouse? The mouse who fell on a sleeping lion!

Was the mouse indebted or just being grateful?  

Did the Lion leave the mouse expecting a deed in return?