Gratitude Friday 11 7 25 Attitude of Gratitude

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.” ― Viktor E. Frankl

It is Gratitude Month, officially in the United States. National Gratitude Month was formally established in 2015. For people in particular mutual aid programs, it has long been celebrated, unofficially since the 1940s and officially since the mid-1950s. Of course, if people are not aware of these things, it would be hard miss that in November we celebrate Thanksgiving. So for all of these reasons and more, if there is a time of year to focus on gratitude, it is now.

We are in the season of harvest. What has been sown is reaped. The die is cast for what comes through the winter months. Back when communities were closer to the earth and we experienced seasonal feast famine dynamics, this was when we had a feast as we prepared for lean times and counted whatever we had a blessing from the earth and the toils of our effort. When we lived in a society in which you had had what you could produce, this was the moment in time when you took stock of what you had and spent time with your loved ones understanding that cold days were coming and winter brought uncertainty and risk.

I recognize that how I think may differ from many, but to me there is beauty in how the human spirit can rise in moments of uncertainty. Real gratitude exists among people facing adversity. It serves to buffer us from difficulty and pull people together. The truth is that gratitude and seeing the positive around us can occur in any circumstance that humans find themselves in, as in the quote above from Frankel’s book Man’s Search for Meaning, a book about his experience in Nazi concentration camps. Gratitude was a constant facet in the book, in another section he recounted a woman who faced death in a few days and was grateful to be able to see a tree branch blossom from the window of her squalid hut. She felt alive facing certain death.

This all may seem grim to readers, but the truth is that gratitude is not a pollyannish thing for persons who have everything going for them and no real worries to face. Gratitude is an accounting for what we have even as it may be less than what is ideal. This kind of gratitude seems relevant in this moment to me. I know people who are afraid to leave their homes based on the color of their skin and others who run out of money before there is enough gas in the car to get to work and to pay for food on plates for their kids. This is the kind of situation in which gratitude for health, or family or another day becomes what carries one through. It is the essence of what is good about the human condition, at least as I see it.

Some of my best Thanksgivings have been spent with people who reflected on their first Thanksgiving in a warm room or not celebrated in a cell, experienced next to another person who was grateful to be there with them in that moment.

I have said that the main reason I write this weekly missive on gratitude is that I am not naturally a grateful person. I see the half empty glass well before I register what is in it. I was taught by people wiser than me early in recovery that gratitude is like muscle, it gets strong when exercised. I have to work at gratitude to keep it.

I could go through my list and it is extensive. I woke up today and I have food, warmth and people who love me. I also know from my 60 years on this pale blue dot that adversity is on the horizon. In many ways, it is likely that it will be a cake walk compared to what others face, but the truth of the quote at the top of this post is that people can face the grimmest of experience and find their humanity in being grateful, have empathy and to be compassionate to others. We live in an era in which more than a few people see these qualities as weaknesses, I am sad for them. Consider the Nazi death camp captive sharing a stale bread crust with another even as their own stomach cries out for food and know that people who live in gratitude and share with others are some of the strongest and best our species has to offer. I am grateful to be reminded of gratitude as a superpower.

What are you grateful for today?