A Few Thoughts on Gratitude

Sometime last week, Becky said, “You need a haircut.  So do I.  I’ll make an appointment for us with Mildred on Saturday.”

For a while now, Becky has insisted Mildred cut my hair because she believes Mildred is the best stylist in town.  Becky is quite right about that, I think.   In all likelihood, Mildred gives me the best haircuts I’ve yet had in my 51 years. She’s a beautiful, petite woman with bronze skin whose eyes sparkle.  When I sat down in her chair yesterday, she promptly chided me for not coming in sooner.  “It’s been a while”, she said accusingly, “Tisk. Tisk. Tisk.”

After I’d made my obligatory promises to reform myself and lead a much better life from then on,  I spent a few moments allowing myself to feel gratitude to Becky for arranging a haircut, and gratitude to Mildred for the good work she does.  I’ve learned gratitude is a good feeling when it comes of its own accord and is not forced. It seems to lighten our hearts and leave us more upbeat, among other things.

Cicero valued gratitude so much that he said of it, “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”  And Alfred Painter somewhere mentions that, “Saying thank you is more than good manners. It is good spirituality.”

There was a time when I couldn’t feel gratitude.  A few years back, I was afflicted with a depression that lasted nearly a decade because I allowed it to go untreated.  During that period, the emotions I could feel were considerably narrowed, and gratitude was not among the few left me.  Then, one evening a month or two after I’d begun therapy, I was crossing a street on my way home when I suddenly became aware of feeling gratitude again for the first time in years.

That event was a revelation. Until that evening, I wasn’t aware of how depression had taken away so much of my emotional life.  And it was also a victory of sorts: It was then I first understood I was going to get better.  Since then, I have considered it a gift to be able to feel gratitude.