The grateful debt

Over the last decade or so there has been the mention of showing gratitude and how it makes you a better person but, this is nothing new, cultivating gratitude goes back to at least the Buddha. The interesting thing I find with it though is that people seem to be grateful selfishly. Does that make sense?

Let me explain my perspective, people want to get something out of their gratefulness, they want to feel better about their experience, feel happiness. Is this wrong? Not at all but it really is only half the story.

The reason that gratitude is so powerful is because it is a pay it forward emotion, where the debt of service is not owed to the source of service. It is a community building attitude and spreads the value of service much wider than back to the lender. Make sense?

Let me give an example. A few weeks back it was my Steemit birthday and I mentioned that I owe a large part of my success to @acidyo and I am grateful for his help. This doesn't mean though that I am indebted to him directly which he understands well but, I am obligated to pay it forward into the community. This is a concept I have written of before, spiraling values. This is the difference between being grateful for someone's assistance and owing them a debt.

This doesn't mean I take the grace shown for granted either, I do not expect his or anyone else's support but, my continued activities made possible by the support will hopefully be worthy of continued support. Too many take support for granted and become complacent, insensitive, entitled and assume support. It is often the entitled who are less than willing to use their position for the betterment of the community and instead of spiraling out, will keep the value within a tight circle.

But, what if there is no one to owe at all? Some of us are born privileged in various ways, even though we all essentially have our various crosses to bear. This type of grace is impossible to pay directly but, it is still easy to use some of the value granted by the randomness of the universe and pay it forward to help others grow. This doesn't even need to be a charitable exercise as it can still be rewarding.

Being part of a community has its own rewards and I don't mean being dependent on the community. To be part of a community, it means being willing to pay the grace of others forward without holding the debt as a favor owed. Sometimes it may be taking a cost of another, being a shield of sorts. This is not heroism, there is nothing grand about it, it is responsibility based on position within the community as the spirals support all levels of the community, from the lowest to the highest reaches.

Having gratitude is about personal morality and responsibility based on the realization that much of what happens to us, fortune or misfortune, is out of our control and if graced, we have a chance to deliver it on toward others.

This is of course not compulsory to do and many that choose not to are the type that believe that they are wholly responsible for their position and felt they had agency at every point. They are blind of course for it is impossible, as from the day they were conceived, randomness played a hand and theirs isn't that hand.

There is really no downside to being grateful yet many seem to believe that showing gratitude somehow lessens their own efforts but again, it is not true at all. If anything, there is a higher cost to pay for overstating the role of one's own agency in results as it comes across as arrogance and in the long-run, arrogance can leave someone ostracized and not part of the community, perhaps even lonely.

The upside is many-fold but there are two basic elements, the external community strength and support developed and, the selfish internal happiness, contentment and peace of mind. Gratitude is a win/win emotional position that activates a sense of duty to the external through the responsibility and understanding of the self.

There is another aspect that becoming grateful for even the smallest of things in this life does, and that is builds compassion for those that have not been graced the same. And compassion again is an active force that builds community, but we can talk of that later.

For now, what are you grateful for, what do you get out of it, what will you do with it?

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]