INTELLIGENT GRATITUDE

By Isochukwu Michael LBSMBA21.

Although man has various systems, he is regarded as one being with the powers of understanding and an innate spirituality. We cannot eradicate emotions because they are necessary for our interactions^[1] and survival however, our intelligence should be the principal governor of our actions.

Life can be very challenging at times. We frequently face insurmountable obstacles, which saps our spirits. We only pay attention to the suffering and scars these obstacles bring us, not because they are so terrible. Nonetheless, everyone’s life requires thankfulness.

Most of the time, we forget that every obstacle life throws our way teaches us something important. No matter how difficult things become, we must always remember to be thankful for what we have and who we are. The many setbacks cause us to lose sight of life’s lovely aspects.

Our precious life, the greatest gift we have ever received, go unappreciated. We breathe in the clean air and take in the breath-taking sunsets and natural sounds. All of this is taking place right in front of our eyes while we are unaware that life is a gift for which we should be thankful.

There may be people in our community who genuinely love and support us. Our family may also have been there for us since the very beginning of our lives. We also have friends. All these should give us reasons to be alive and should be a source of gratitude for us. On the other side, there are those who have broken our hearts the most and caused us the greatest pain. We ought to be appreciative of them too. They explained to us why we shouldn’t be so innocent and trusting. In addition, they improved our strength, wisdom, and fortitude.

The experience of others shows that we ought to be appreciative of all the things we frequently take for granted. We see the sun every morning and the moon every night, we have a roof over our heads, and food on the table. The important things in life are these tiny details. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to appreciate the beauty in other things. Along with all these important little things for which we should be grateful, there are also our shortcomings and mistakes. After all, they contribute to our humanity. Nothing in the world is flawless, including us.

Our character development and development into the real individuals we are today are shaped by our blunders. They impart life lessons and teach us how to love and care for others. They aid in our understanding of life and point us in the direction of personal development.

Rather than being filled with regrets, we should be thankful for life and live every second of it as no one gets out alive. Life is full with incredible things for which we should be thankful. We should never lose sight of how fortunate we are considering how difficult things could get for others. This is because we take so many things in our lives for granted that we fail to recognize how fortunate we are to be in the present moment[2].

Every morning when we awaken, we may fail to express our thankfulness for even having woken up. We stand up without appreciating how fortunate we are to have functional legs. We take for granted the fact that we eat, sleep, and drink our morning coffee. All of these things are so commonplace in our lives that we no longer consider them to be exceptional. We take what we have for granted.

Only after we lose some or all of it do we realize how appreciative we should be for everything. We then ponder why our existence is still dismal and depressing.  In essence, the articles for this session tells us to stop taking life for granted and start genuinely appreciating everything we have.

Taking it a step further, we should realize that we can be the author of the life we desire. By taking a purposeful approach towards designing our life[3].

[1] Tyng CM, Amin HU, Saad MNM and Malik AS (2017) The Influences of Emotion on Learning and Memory. Front. Psychol. 8:1454. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01454.

[2] Robert Emmons. How Gratitude Can Help you Through Hard Times (2013) Big Ideas greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_gratitude_can_help_you_through_hard_times

[3] Burnett B. & Evans D. Designing your life : how to build a well-lived joyful life. (2018) First Ed. New York. Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 9781101875322.