I think we can all agree that all of us want to be happy. However, happiness means different things to different people.
Some say that in order to have happiness, you must have gratefulness. Some say it is the other way around.
There are many people who have everything that it would take to be happy and are NOT happy — because they want something else or more of the same. I know people who have lots of misfortune; misfortune that I would not want to have — and yet they are deeply happy. They radiate happiness. Why? Because they are grateful.
Therefore, it is not happiness that makes us grateful. It is gratefulness that makes us happy.
What do I mean by gratefulness? And how does it work? We all know from our own experience how this goes. We experience something that is freely given and valuable to us. We didn’t ask for it or work for it. It is freely given. Gratefulness spontaneously rises in our hearts. Happiness spontaneously rises in our hearts. That’s how gratefulness happens.
The key to all this is that we should not only experience this once in a while. We cannot only have grateful experiences. We can be people who LIVE gratefully. Grateful LIVING is the thing.
How can we live gratefully? By experiencing and becoming aware that every moment is a given moment. It’s a gift! It is freely given to us, valuable to us and we have no guarantee that another moment might be given to us. And yet, that’s the most valuable thing that can be given to us — this moment with all the opportunity that it contains.
What’s really valuable is the opportunity. Opportunity is the gift within every gift. We say that “opportunity knocks only once” , and yet, every moment is a new gift! If you miss the opportunity of this moment, another moment will be given to us. We can avail ourselves of this opportunity or we can miss it.
In essence, we hold the master key to our own happiness in our own hands. Moment by moment, we can be grateful for this gift.
Does that mean that we can be grateful for everything? Certainly not. We cannot be grateful for violence, for war, for oppression, for exploitation. On a personal level we cannot be grateful for the loss of a friend, for unfaithfulness, for bereavement.
Even when we are confronted with something that is terribly difficult, we can rise to the occasion and respond to the opportunity that is given to us. If you analyze it, more often than not what is given to us is the opportunity to enjoy and we miss it because we are rushing through life and not stopping to see the opportunity.
Once in a while, something very difficult is given to us. When this difficulty occurs, it is a challenge to rise to that opportunity. We are given opportunities to suffer, to learn, to stand up for what we believe. Those that make something out of those opportunities are the ones that we admire, that make something out of life. Those who fail….get another opportunity. We always get another opportunity. That is a wonderful richness of life.
How can each of us find a method for living gratefully?
It’s actually what we were taught as children when we were taught to cross the street. Stop, look, go.
How often do we stop? We rush through life. We miss the opportunity because we don’t stop. We have to get quiet and build stop signs into our lives.
The next thing is to look. Open your eyes, ears, nose and all your senses to this wonderful richness that is given to us. That is what life is all about — to enjoy what is given to us. We can also open our hearts for the opportunity to help others. To make others happy because nothing makes us happier than to make all of us happy.
When we open our heart to the opportunities, the opportunities invite us to do something — that is when we go. Go and do whatever life offers you in that present moment.
There is a wave of gratefulness because people are becoming aware of how this can change our world. If you’re grateful, you’re not fearful. If you’re not fearful, you’re not violent.
If you are grateful, you act out of a sense of “enough” and not a sense of scarcity and you’re willing to share.
If you’re grateful, you enjoy the differences between people and you’re respectful to everybody and that changes this power pyramid under which we live.
People are becoming aware that a grateful world is a happy world. We all have the opportunity to stop, look, go and transform.
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