Attitude of Gratitude: Follow the Rules
The dreaded day has arrived. Report cards came out on Monday – you had until Friday to have it signed by your parents and returned to the teacher.
And now it’s Thursday night. You don’t have to show your parents your stupid report card to know what’s coming. Not only were your grades not great (or at least not as good as they should be) – it’s the teacher’s comment that puts the nail in your coffin. Not only will there be no television until your homework is done – now you’re going to have to actually let your parents know exactly what homework you have before you start. If that isn’t bad enough you just know Mom is going to check your work – which is going to mean having to do at least some of it over again for sure.
And of course, you’re right. Once Mom read “Tommy is very bright, but his attitude is holding him back from doing his best work” it was all over and done with.
While this little walk down Tommy’s memory lane may not reflect how you felt about showing your parents your report card as a child, most of us adults would do well to ask ourselves:
“Is my attitude holding me back from living my best life?”
For all too many of us the answer is most likely “Yes.”
We’ve all heard the euphemism “Change your attitude, change your life.” And maybe we’ve really tried to change our attitude. But life sometimes just doesn’t seem worth having a good attitude about. It keeps throwing us curve balls when we least expect them, when what we want is a nice, easy pitch right in our strike zone.
An Attitude of Gratitude
When it comes to changing our attitude it definitely helps to know what it is we need to change. However, change may be the wrong word here. What would be more effective would be to develop a theme for our attitude. A sort of guiding light that colors how we think, as well as what we do, no matter what comes our way in life. Both those things that we don’t choose (or at least think we don’t), as well as what we do choose to pursue or make happen for ourselves.
That theme, that guiding principle is gratitude – and our first step is to understand exactly what gratitude is. Obviously, if we feel gratitude it means we are grateful. We appreciate something or someone. However, this gratefulness and appreciation are most usually associated with a specific event or occurrence. A one-shot instance where someone gives us a gift, someone does something for us.
However, when we speak of an “attitude of gratitude” we don’t speak to an instance, a moment of gratitude. An attitude describes the way we think about something or someone most, or all, of the time. More than that, an attitude is a predisposed way of thinking – it is a given. For instance, it is a given that we are grateful when we feel loved. Another way to think of what “attitude” means is to see it as similar to having a predisposed opinion of a thing, a circumstance, or person – a sort of prejudice. And when we are prejudiced we tend to behave in certain ways towards anything or anyone associated with that prejudice.
Carl Jung backs that up. His definition of attitude includes the idea that our attitude affects both our emotions and behavior. He described attitude as a “readiness of the psyche to act or react in a certain way” – which also a very good description for prejudice.
An attitude of gratitude goes well beyond showing our appreciation of being thankful for some object, person, circumstance, or condition we happen to like. Perhaps most synonymous to an “attitude of gratitude” is the concept of unconditional love. When this understanding of attitude is attached to a state of gratitude it means we are predisposed to being thankful. We are oriented to appreciating life. We are prejudiced by the thought that life is something to be grateful for. We are unconditionally grateful.
But it seems crazy to be grateful for things, circumstances, or people that we don’t like. When there appears to be nothing to appreciate or be grateful for. How can we be grateful when bad things happen that we certainly would never choose to happen?
Burt Goldman shares the bliss of gratitude
The Rules of Gratitude
During the World Series it would seem insane for a batter to appreciate striking out after failing to hit a merciless curve ball – especially if it meant “game over”. But those are the rules – one, two, three strikes and – you’re out.
Life can seem to follow those same rules. We don’t always get to choose what happens to us or how people treat us. Many of us are all too ready to give up when we feel that we’re striking out.
However, most baseball players don’t quit the game when they strike out. They understand the rules of the game. Sure enough, that same batter may hit the winning run next Series.
Why is that batter still there next season? He is grateful to play the game, no matter what the rules. He has an attitude of gratitude. He’s happy to be playing. He has an unconditional love for the game.
There is a deep relationship between happiness and an attitude of gratitude. And, just like baseball, there are rules to follow in order to live a happy, satisfied life of gratitude.
Burt Goldman, often referred to as “The American Monk” gives us five very simple rules for happiness:
- If you like a something enjoy it
- If you don’t like something avoid it
- If you can’t avoid something change it
- If you can’t avoid it and can’t change it – accept it
- If you can’t avoid it, can’t change it, can’t accept it – change your attitude about it.
So, you see it goes full circle. If you like something, it is easy to have an attitude of gratitude because you are predisposed (prejudiced) to feel thankful because you like it – because you enjoy it. The secret for living a happy life is an attitude of gratitude.
The beauty of developing and nurturing an attitude of gratitude is that it allows us to be grateful for and appreciate all life brings us. How does an attitude of gratitude do this for us? When we have a true attitude of gratitude all we have to do is look, no matter where we are or what might be happening, and we can find something to be grateful for.
Viktor Frankl, author of “Man’s Search for Meaning” profoundly demonstrates the power of an attitude of gratitude. In his book he tells the story of how, after a day of deprivation and suffering few, if any of us, will ever endure, starving and exhausted men came out of their feeble, freezing hut. Using their last bit of energy, they rose and went outside to enjoy, and be grateful for, a stunningly beautiful sunset.
