To be thankful implies something has been bestowed to us, but aren’t we the bestowers?
From how I understand it, gratitude is being thankful for the blessings and things that are in your life/that happen in the world.
But to be thankful for something implies that it was bestowed to/upon you, no? Or it was something “positive” that happened outside of your control.
For example, I’m traveling and I threw something away before my flight because it was taking up space and I realized I wasn’t using it very often. But when I got to the place I was staying at my new destination, the exact same item was there (it was a very specific brand and flavor of tea). And I’ve stayed in DOZENS of places and never saw that.
So when I saw it, I felt gratitude/thankful that it was there. But then I thought about how everything is connected and it made me wonder, was this not my doing? If I am the universe and the universe provided this, to who or to what am I thankful?
Now, I’m not saying it’s a paradox to feel happiness/joy/surprise. But I’m starting to think maybe we use the word “gratitude” to describe feelings of joy, love, content, relief, etc…
The reason I bring this up is because of the implications! Gratitude, by design, is acknowledging external power and therefore reduces the significance of your own. I think it could be much easier to have self confidence and feel like you have agency by not looking at life as “things happening for you/to you” and looking at it moreso as “this is the result of my actions and desires” and using those things as both a test for yourself and as reassurance to not stress so much.
If you live and believe that you ultimately are the reason for everything that happens to you, you have to take all the “good” with all the “bad.” I think a lot of how we cope with and rationalize things leans on the premise that a lot of things are simply out of our control. But if everything that happens is our own doing, it can be a very, very uncomfortable thing to sit with when things don’t go the way you want.
But on the other hand, there is something reassuring about that, no? At the very least, it could be motivation to learn more about yourself and find clarity.
Part of the problem is our perception of what “control” is and expectation. If you believe that the world should/will look like what you expect it to, or how you want it to, it can be confusing when it doesn’t turn out that way.
I think the key is remembering that existence is about “focus.” You are everything, but right now you are “focused” on being you (which is maybe why depersonalization/derealization happens with drugs or mental disorders, we literally “lose focus” of ourselves/existence). There are times when you are more “focused” on your hunger, or your sleepiness, or you love for someone. When you focus more on one aspect, other aspects become less “significant.” But being focused on your starvation does NOT eliminate your sleepiness/thirst/love for someone.
For example, when you are in love and things don’t end well, we “focus” on our unmet desires and expectations. We focus on how hurt or betrayed we feel. During the relationship, we maybe focused on the positive moments but ignored all the red flags. But the thing to remember is that none of those other things went away, you just stopped paying attention to them or you were ignorant to things.
So in life when things don’t work out, because we focused on specific things, we didn’t “see” or focus on the other things. When that happens, rather than feeling defeat, you should feel encouraged to change your focus and see things that you probably missed or ignored. Rather than being confused and feeling like everything is just happening to you, you can shift your perspective to “why did this happen for me?” Why didn’t “I” (aka the universe) want things to turn out the way I hoped for?
It kind of makes sense too; I mean, how many times do you see people talk about how losing their job or how a relationship ending turned out to be a path to something better? More often that not, people do NOT end up back together. There are people who literally do witchcraft to get their ex back, but fast forward a few years and you couldn’t pay them to even be in the same room as their ex.
Let me know what you think down below!
– Virg
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