Gratitude

My attitude toward gratitude is very reality-based and practical. I am truly grateful in the moment for any unsolicited kindness. This extends from the person who recognizes me as another person when he/she holds a door open for me to the person who stops a safe distance from me as I use a crosswalk on my urban neighborhood's streets. I acknowledge my gratitude and their kindness overtly with a "Thank you." or a friendly wave at a car's windshield, even if I cannot see the driver clearly.

 

This level of gratitude, as a regular experience and expression, was intensified after I was first immobilized by AIDS and then immobilized by cancer several years thereafter. In both case, I rehabilitated myself from using a walker to using a cane to walking feebly in the public space. I felt I must regain my confidence walking in the world, as opposed to hiding in safer environments until I felt whole again. I am an outgoing urban person, born and raised.

 

During my periods of severe physical disability, I learned a great deal about human beings as individuals and in groups. Many of the lessons were unpleasant and disappointing. The occasional experience of kindness was a truly intoxicating uplift. I learned that individuals in public are generally kinder to the disabled than groups. Perhaps the individual pedestrian or subway rider can better identify with the vulnerability of the challenged. I learned that all-male groups and all-female groups, especially when composed of young people, can be callous or even dangerous to the vulnerable or challenged. I was particularly grateful if the member of a group of adolescents showed me any concern whatsoever. I viewed that young person as courageous as well as kind. Peer pressure in childhood and adolescence is particularly brutal.

 

My recent experience here on my street with a group of male construction workers and subsequently with their superiors has reminded me of these past-learned lessons. The construction workers in a group indulge the most macho and alienating behaviors. I do not encourage these behaviors with any interaction, as long as they do not threaten my person or environment directly. Their superiors, when I dealt with each individually with a complaint, were patient and attentive, for which I was grateful.

 

I avoid generalizations like "I'm lucky to be alive!" I do not feel lucky to be alive much of the time. This comes with pain, chronic disease and normal aging. I understand now, better than I ever have, that birth itself is a ticket to inevitable suffering for all living beings. I do feel lucky to have been born with many of my genetic capabilities and familial circumstances. This is, after all, a matter of pure luck. I have met many people who were better human beings than I am who were not so lucky with the resources provided by their births.

 

Developing a practice of conscious and expressive gratitude is very helpful in the general process of self-development. Observing and acknowledging kindness and generosity, or its absence, can be very educational. It can tell me a great deal about how much kindness and generosity I am putting out into my environment. Kindness and generosity attract kindness and generosity. Selfishness invites alienation. Recognizing acts of kindness and generosity in my life, especially when I am alone among strangers, builds my tendency toward general compassion toward those in my environment.