We are told that gratitude is an important virtue for us to appreciate the things we receive and experience. I don’t think so. Let’s explore.
Gratitude is about being thankful. You are supposed to have gratitude for your blessings, like health and family. The Bible often speaks about gratitude and reverence to the things that made and govern you, like god and your parents. So why shouldn’t we be thankful for having these things? What kind of person would question gratitude? There are three reasons why gratitude is not a useful thing:
- Gratitude invents a thing or being to which you are grateful. Thankfulness is directed toward the thing that bestowed you with the blessing. Who exactly are you thanking for health? It also presumes that the giver of blessings exists, cares, and is listening.
- Gratitude is an excellent way to lose presence. If you are savouring a moment and for whatever reason decide it is so enjoyable that you must end your experience to be thankful for it, you have ceased being present and rather succumbed to the forces that try to stop you from being in your life.
- Gratitude misdirects responsibility. By being thankful to something else, you fail to acknowledge your role in your blessings. Your heart is still beating because you skipped some fried foods. Your world is beautiful because you didn’t pour acid in your garden, or better still, nurtured some pretty things. Celebrate your good decision making rather than misattribute your circumstances to something that ain’t listening
What do we do rather than give thanks? Enjoy it.
