By Frances Lee Menlove
It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. —Albus Dumbledore
I begin with a story, a story about making choices. It begins, as all good stories should, with . . .
Once upon a time, there was a peddler who earned his living by traveling to the market each Saturday and selling his wares from his horse-drawn cart. He traded in tools, pieces of farm equipment, and random housewares. One day, in preparation for his trip, he laid some squash and two bushels of fresh corn on top of some tools, and at the last minute, his wife added a bag of recently harvested sugar beets.
But when the peddler was ready to go, the horse could not move. The cart was simply too heavy. The peddler walked carefully around his cart, surveying his inventory for something that could be left behind, but could see nothing that wasn’t absolutely essential. He knew he had to lighten the load. He knew it was decision time. After careful thought, he made his choice. He took off the wheels.
The moral of this parable is, of course, to look thoughtfully at our choices, to be careful about removing the very things that propel our journey. As Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School for Wizards counseled, “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
One of the choices we have in life is something that is often not considered a choice at all. Gratitude.
Gratitude is that spark that arises in us when we are thankful for even the smallest everyday courtesy: a stranger picking up a paper we have dropped, or holding the elevator door for us, or showing us how to choose ripe mangos in a supermarket. We smile when we see pigtails bouncing on the head of a running child, or light reflected off our grandmother’s glass vase, or a bird on the branch outside our window. Each moment may be an occasion for gratitude—but maybe gratitude can be more than a spontaneous pleasant emotion. Maybe it can be an attitude of mind and heart, an attitude we can choose. Maybe gratitude is the wheels on the cart that help us move forward each day.
Philosophers and theologians have always considered gratitude a major virtue. It is prominent in our Latter-day Saint scriptures, as well as in Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. All religions, with their differences of belief and ritual, their claims of uniqueness and superiority, still consider gratitude a major virtue.
The ancient Roman philosopher Cicero said, “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others.”
More recently, LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley, took the idea one step farther, saying “Gratitude is the very essence of worship.”
Well aware of the core place of gratitude in philosophical and religious discourse, social scientists have recently more earnestly begun studying and analyzing gratitude.
In one study, participants were divided randomly into three groups. Each group was asked to write down five things about the previous week: group one writing five things they were grateful for, group two writing about five hassles they’d experienced, and group three listing any five things. Over the course of several experiments, the researchers learned that the groups keeping weekly gratitude journals reported more progress toward their personal goals, were more optimistic, felt better about their lives, and even exercised more than those who kept weekly journals of hassles or random life events. (I love the part about the gratitude group’s exercising more!)
Martin Seligman, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, devised what he calls the gratitude visit. It works like this: Think of a person in your life who has been kind to you but whom you’ve never properly thanked. Write a detailed “gratitude letter’’ to that person, explaining in concrete terms why you’re grateful to him or her. Visit that person, and read the testimony aloud. According to Seligman, the ritual is powerful. “Everyone cries when you do a gratitude visit,’’ he says. “It’s very moving for both people.”
Several studies link the recollection of warm memories to a slight, but measurable, elevation in mood. We were all taught to count our blessings, and wisely so. When things go south in our lives, we can imagine what-if scenarios that are darker than our current reality. But instead of dwelling on the unexpected flat tire, we wonder what would have happened if the passerby hadn’t been so helpful. We feel gratitude.
Memories such as a baby’s first smile, the sighting of the Hale-Bopp comet, watching robins eggs hatch in a nest outside an upstairs window, a child’s graduation from college, can invoke an inner smile. As I was conjuring up a memory for which I was grateful, I was surprised at what popped up. I remembered a particular day when I had been visiting my grandkids. Hearing riotous laughter, I went downstairs where I saw what was making the commotion. Two older grandchildren were teaching a younger one to march around the playroom chanting:
Amster, Amster, Dam Dam Dam,
Amster, Amster, Dam Dam Dam
I am reminded to count my many blessings. I am reminded that I am very lucky to have grandchildren. It could have been otherwise.
The social science research of the last several years has concluded that gratitude is positively related to happiness, life satisfaction, inner peace, and empathy but negatively correlated with anxiety and depression. In other words, maybe Cicero was right: gratitude is a parent virtue, one that creates a ripple effect, a virtue that nurtures other virtues.
Thus, ancient philosophers, theologians, the scriptures of many religions, and contemporary social science research all agree: Gratitude is positively good for us.
But, can we choose gratitude, or it is something that arises only spontaneously? Can we decide to live gratefully? Robert A. Emmons thinks so. In fact, he has devoted his career to what he calls the “new science of gratitude.”
Emmons asserts that feelings of gratitude don’t depend on our circumstances or our genetic wiring or anything else we don’t control. In fact, even material possessions aren’t essential for a grateful disposition. Gratitude can be an attitude we choose that makes life better for ourselves and for other people.
One more thing: gratitude may be contagious. Not exactly in the way yawns are contagious or the way people tend to laugh more at a funny movie when in a theatre full of people than while watching the same movie alone, but contagious nevertheless. We humans are susceptible to catching other people’s emotions whether they be anger, fear, hilarity, or gratitude.
But before you start singing kumbaya, we must make sure we understand each other. There is a brand of pop psychology (and almost pop religion) that starts with preaching gratitude and positive thinking. But from this modest beginning, it slithers through all manner of slippery reasoning and theological sleight of hand to end up explaining that whatever happens to us is always for the best, and that whatever ails you can be traced back to your own negativity.
Further, such preachers contend that whatever you want is yours for the taking, or the asking, or the visualizing. This philosophy is not what I’m promoting here. I am not supporting the abandonment of critical thinking. There is no single formula for coping with the pain and joy of living.
What I am talking about is more akin to what the astrophysicist Carl Sagan, of Billions and Billions fame, suggests as a kind of deep, profound gratitude—a sense of awe. All you cooks in the audience listen to Sagan’s mini-meditation: “If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”
Gratitude seems to provide a framework for processing the events in our lives. A framework of awe. A framework of thankfulness. Gratitude can be the way the heart remembers.
I recently visited a Buddhist monastery in Korea. The monk who greeted us suggested we open our minds and let the winds waft through them as we proceeded up the stairs to the ancient temple. Open your minds as I tell you a story; listen deeply, and let this ancient tale have its way with you.
There were two Buddhist monks, one somber and one joyful, living miles apart. The first monk prayed all day long in deep, motionless silence. The second monk would sing and dance his praises to God near a huge tree in the monastery garden.
One day, an angel appeared to the first monk and said, “I have come from God. You have been given permission to ask God one question. What is your question?” The somber monk looked up and asked, “How many more lives must I live before I attain self-realization?”
The angel left him and reappeared miles away to the second monk, who was singing and dancing before God. The angel said, “I have come from God. You have been given permission to ask God one question. What is your question?” Without hesitation, the joyful monk asked, “How many more lives must I live before I attain self-realization?” And with that, the angel disappeared.
One week later, the angel returned to the somber monk and said, “I have the answer you seek. You must live three more lives before you attain self-realization.” Hearing this, the first monk fell dejectedly into heavy sobbing, “Three more lives, three more lives. Oh, no,” he cried, “three more lives.”
The angel left and appeared to the dancing monk. “I have your answer,” the angel said. “Do you see that tree around which you have been dancing and singing your praises to God?”
“Yes,” replied the joyful monk.
“You must live as many more lives as there are leaves on that tree before you will attain self-realization,” the angel said.
The monk looked up at the tree and said, “Why, there must be ten thousand leaves on that tree. Only ten thousand lives? Only ten thousand more lives, and I will attain self-realization!” And the monk began to sing and dance joyfully before God.
Suddenly a deep voice thundered from heaven, “My child, this day you have attained self-realization.”
This story depicts gratitude as almost a state of being. The joyful monk is an example of President Hinckley’s assertion that gratitude is the essence of worship. Being grateful for the shining moon, the orange on the counter, and the open book on the table. Grateful when the right word comes to mind, when a name is remembered—and a sense of humor when it doesn’t. Grateful for the laughter of the kids running around the front yard. Grateful for the astounding space photographs taken by the Hubble telescope. Grateful for the gift of life.
Bottom line, gratitude is a choice that Albus Dumbledore, that wonderful, wise Headmaster of Hogwarts, would certainly approve of.
