GF 11 22 24 – The Power of Gratitude to Save Our Nation

“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.”

― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Gratitude is vital for a well lived life. For me, a November without a reflection on gratitude would be incomplete at best. For many people in recovery, gratitude is an important tool to sustain recovery. I have kept this weekly gratitude post going for four years now, or well over 200 weekly posts. When I sat down to reflect about a Thanksgiving gratitude post this year, I looked back at prior years pieces. Last year, I wrote National Gratitude Month focused on the notion of expanding on the sentiment of Thanksgiving and having an entire month of national reflection on the bounties we have been afforded as a country. In 2022, I penned Gratitude and the Eeyore Effect that focused on some of the history of gratitude in mutual aid fellowships, the science of gratitude and the role it has played in my own recovery. The year before, I wrote The Attitude of Gratitude about how gratitude helped me be a better version of myself.

What could I possibly have to add to this topic?  

I have this to add. If the United States of America was a person, that person would benefit from a serious focus on gratitude much in the same way that I experienced it benefit as I was emerging in early recovery from the darkest days of my addiction.

You can disagree with me if you like, but I look around and see a nation I barely recognize. I see a great deal of division, bitterness and a lack of civility. We are filled with dissension and venom focused on each other. One has to go no further than a drive on the highway to see aggressive disregard for each other in ways that seem pervasive. Behavior in public that would have been rare a decade ago is now the norm. Sadly, and in ways I have never seen before in my years, there seems very little united about us as a people. While we are a nation filled with talented and generous people, we seem to be losing those qualities as we fail to count are collective blessings.  

The toxicity we find ourselves in as a nation has a paradox, as we have more influence and accumulated more wealth than most other countries combined. In opposition to the quote above, we seem like a giant with a small heart, which is even hard for me to write, because for most of my life and before my birth, we were known by the world as a generous and forward-thinking nation that helped the less fortunate and stood for common human values. From my perspective, that attitude we used to have in the country was good for us and good for the rest of the world.

When I reflect on where we are as a people at this juncture, it feels not dissimilar to where I was in my own life in my darkest days. I was broken and yet filled with promise. What I needed to do was find the strengths I had hidden inside myself and pull them out to become a better version of myself. Like a person, if we spend time reflecting on the positive facets we have hidden from ourselves and each other as a society, it could help heal our collective malaise.

A few weeks ago, two regions of our nation were hit by hurricanes that created tremendous hardship. Well over a billion dollars of relief have flowed in to these states and groups like the Cajun Navy and the World Central Kitchen showed up to help. Benefit concerts and faith-based fund-raising efforts popped up while thousands of volunteers poured in from across the nation. While it is true that the scope and scale of the devastation have led to suffering in ways few of us can even imagine, average Americans have responded with support. We are still a generous people, it is something we still lead the world in, a fact I had to dig to find as there is little reporting on these stats. The media has been focused on failures instead. There are a whole lot of people across the globe who are grateful for how giving a people we are collectively.

Yet, in considering who we are as a nation right now, I would ask us to consider the mirror test. Can we look at our collective selves in the mirror and honestly say that we are right now the finest version of ourselves we can be? I do not think so, and I say that as a patriot. I love this country, and I want us to be able to look in that mirror and feel good about who we are. I would hold that if we sat down more regularly and counted our blessings, blessings that include each other despite our differences, we would move ourselves just a little bit closer to being our best collective selves and pass the mirror test.

We owe all those who came before us and all those who come after us the effort to deliver forward a country more united, a country more focused on the best of what and who we are when we rise to our finer aspirations. I am grateful we are here today and now that the one thing that each new day affords us is a new opportunity to be and do better.

What are you grateful for today?