Gratitude: The Key That Opens It All
by Wanda Veloz
“Forget that you have given I order to remember what you have received” ~ Mariano Aguiló, Spanish poet.
Each month the local editors for LifeGrid Magazine are proposed a theme for our editorial. For the
October edition we were assigned “Gratitude”. Gratitude can be defined as a sentiment of esteem
and acknowledgment that is had towards someone who has done us a favor, or who has provided
us a service, for which we want to correspond to that person in some way. It’s a beautiful sentiment
that enlivens the heart of both the person who gives thanks and the person who receives it. It’s so
natural to be grateful when someone does us some good. To be grateful brings joy to the heart and
makes the soul stand up. However, despite being such a great and noble sentiment, it seems that
as human beings we condition gratitude according to our perception. We are grateful when some-
one does something that we hoped for, needed (or at least believed we did) and that at that
moment in time brings joy to our heart and even makes our life easier. I call this easy gratitude, for
it doesn’t really require much effort on our part to be grateful i n such circumstances, right?
But there’s another kind of gratitude; it is the Gratitude that I write in capital letters. This Gratitude
is the most difficult to harbor: that which we find when the world drops down on us; it’s the one
that arises even when results don’t come as we expected or desired. It’s a very special kind of Grat-
itude, because it doesn’t allow the circumstances of daily life to dim its light; it’s the one that comes
out of our heart when everything goes wrong, when we lose, when it hurts, when we don’t reach
a goal, when someone hurts us or make us feel bad for something we did or didn’t do. I speak of
that apparently elusive Gratitude that’s born from a broken heart; from disappointment; from tears,
from difficulties. Feeling Gratitude when you feel that you have nothing but a lot of failures is the
most difficult one to feel, because it’s the most difficult one for us to draw out from the bottom of our
heart. It’s as if it requires us to empty ourselves of everything that we believe define us, I order to
present itself in those moments in which our true being rises up and encourages us to go forward,
showing us the blessings that we do have.
"Only an excess is recommended in the world: the excess of gratitude" - Jean de la Bruyere
The funniest thing is that this Gratitude with capital letters is usually found in those things that we
take for granted and that therefore we underestimate: our health, family, job. It’s that one that’s pres-
ent when we can see a beautiful sunrise, or when hearing a bird sing its melody; we find it also
when we dive into the ocean, when sunbathing. ¿Or don’t you feel gratitude when a person smiles
at you? ¿Or when you get home and your dog greets you wiggling its tail? ¿Or how about when
a flower opens up and gives you its aroma and beauty? ¿How can we not be grateful to be able
to see, to dance, to walk? When we practice Gratitude, we realize how much we have. Usually
we feel we're lacking something, and that's where we focus most of the time, isn’t it? Let’s count
our blessings, let’s be grateful that we have them, and they will multiply even more. The blessings
that we have are more abundant than the ones we believe we lack.
"Gratitude is the heart's memory" - Lao Tse
This is why today I would like to invite you to connect with this feeling, by answering the questions:
What is Gratitude to me? What am I grateful for? I’m sure that once you start counting the things
that you’re grateful for, you’ll be able to see, just like I did, that the blessings we have in our lives
are far many more, and the so called things we “lack” will take a backseat. Or at least that’s my
hope for all of you…
Oh, wait a minute! I just got an e-mail. It’s from a character named money! And it has a message
for everyone. Keep on reading…