Gratitude has been a bit of a catch cry in the 2020s. A new age-y mindful-y, mindless, awareness, talking point.
When we were kids, certainly when I was a child, I was taught to say ‘thank you’. ‘Please’ and ‘thank you’. They always went together but it’s a bit like people saying ‘I’m sorry’ or saying ‘I love you’ – sometimes words just become words when the sentiment has gone out of them – they are just words.
Only say it if you mean it
I taught my children NOT to say ‘sorry’ unless they had done something bad and they were truly sorry. Other things that can go in that word slot are, ‘that’s sad’, ‘that’s frustrating, hard, or stressful’. It’s just too easy to say ‘sorry’ and move on.
‘Please’ and ‘thank you’ have become a habit and I suppose we can actually be grateful for that because it’s better than a grunt or snort.
But what about being really grateful?
Am I grateful that I and my family don’t live in Gaza at the moment? Hell yes! But it’s the kind of grateful that comes with its own special double-edged sword. I’m not grateful for what’s happening in Gaza at the moment. I’m not grateful for what’s happening in the Ukraine. I’m not grateful for a lot of stuff – not ungrateful, just not grateful.
I saw a meme on my socials the other day. It was in two halves – the first was a bunch of Western kids, being asked what sort of things they wanted. Surprisingly, or maybe not, even in ones so young, a lot of them wanted money, and then there were the usual things like candy, horses, puppies and Lego.
The second half of the meme was the same question asked to the children in Gaza. They said they would ask for food. They wanted to go back to school. They were asking to be able to play sport again, but mostly they wanted food, and I sat sobbing, wishing I could give them those things. I felt very ungrateful that I am powerless to do so.
I am grateful for…
Sometimes this is a really shit country, but this year I have something to be very grateful for.
In 2024 I had a surgery that will most likely save my life being cut short by 10 or 20 years. I am so, so grateful for that, but even more so, I’m grateful that my children made it to their 30s, without being shot. I’m grateful that they, or I, have never been in a war. I am grateful that if they have children, the chances are those kids will grow to adulthood with enough food in their belly and enough teaching in their brains.
As for manners, the ones that I was taught as a youngster – the ones that I taught my children and the ones I hear them teaching other children now – ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ – those will get you a long way, but, think about what you are asking for. Has what we are asking for, and what we are ‘grateful’ for become so frivolous and superfluous to our needs, or survival, that we don’t really care anymore? We just say the words then get on with our day?
I propose two questions this Christmas time
The first is: what are you really grateful for? That is really, really grateful for? Something that is life-changing, life-assisting, or truly makes you happy?
The other question is: what is something that would make you really grateful; grateful on a personal level and grateful on a global level?
Is world peace possible if we were all grateful enough, could we have that? (PLEASE?)
Is a world without hunger within the realms of possibility? We know it is. We know how much money can be wasted on political campaigns and fattening the rich. If a lot of the money that was superfluous to their needs (most of it) were spent on digging wells, planting crops, and saving the environment, would that make them grateful? It would make me feel very grateful.
To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what it is that I’m wanting to say. There is a deep, and growing deeper, feeling of unrest which most of us actually have. That feeling of eating our Christmas lunch and opening yet another parcel of things we don’t ‘need’ while the news feeds are full of more child amputees than there has ever been in one country at one time. Orphans. Starvation…
What I would be really grateful for this festive season would be peace of mind, the kind of peace that comes with peace. True peace. If Santa can deliver that this year, I’ll be really, really grateful.
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