Gratitude is a Choice

Several days ago President Russell M. Nelson, the leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, asked us all to fill social media with gratitude. As I listened to him in his address to the world, I realized that gratitude is more than a feeling that we have around Thanksgiving, it is a choice that we make every day. This is my attempt to heed his call.

Gratitude is not necessarily a religious precept. We are not always thinking in terms of our chosen religion, or of our choice not to be religious, when we say, "thank you" to someone for a perceived kindness. We acknowledge our interdependence with other human beings. The sentence, "We are all in this together" during times of stress or danger signals our need for each other. Expressing our gratitude during those times seems to come easier. But still, our choice is to express that gratitude or to dismiss it, even unconsciously.

Our society has a way of building in certain reactions to the rigors of daily life. Someone sneezes and we say, "Bless You." The grocery store clerk bags our purchases and we say, "Thank you." And one which seems to be disappearing is to thank a person for opening a door for us, or holding it open until we get there. The word civility is connected with behaviors which signal gratitude. These built-in reactions to kindness seem to relieve us of the conscious effort to be thankful. And increasingly, even these rote expressions of gratitude are disappearing.

The fabric of our society depends upon interconnectivity and gratitude. Whether we believe that we are all in it together or that we fend for ourselves, if we want to live together in a clump of human beings, we should show gratitude. Every day it is more evident that "no man is an island."

But President Nelson was also speaking of the religious concept of gratitude. We are sons and daughters of God, and upon him we depend for our very lives. This world, this spaceship earth upon which we live He created for our home. He has given us partners to love, children to raise, friends to cherish. As his children, we should choose to be grateful for these gifts every day.

All of us can choose to consider ourselves blessed by the people around us. Most human beings are not so bad. Every day we read of the sacrifices of our healthcare givers, our law enforcement personnel, our neighbors who fight to save our houses during fires or cut our lawns when we are sick, or give a smile to those of us who are ravaged by the indignities of old age. When we look beyond the blinders of race, gender, and politics we see helping hands extended from unexpected sources, acts of kindness and expressions of love from those around us. If we don't see it, perhaps we are not looking for it. It is easy to withdraw when we feel slighted. But we can choose to see the good, and to express our gratitude to our neighbors and our God even then.

When I was in the military I learned a lesson which I believe has made me a better person, and one which I would have not missed for the world. In Vietnam I spent day and night in the jungle with men who were just like me. We were interdependent human beings first, and whites, blacks, Hispanics, gays, straight, brave and not so brave somewhere way down the list. At night we went to sleep and put our lives in the hands of our fellow soldiers. We grew to trust them with the most important thing we possessed, the privilege of breathing for one more day. It must sound melodramatic to those who have not experienced it, but a soldier's life in combat is given one day at a time, with the threat of death one heartbeat away. Neither race nor social status had any relevance to our situation. A bullet doesn't care who you are.

I don't remember saying "thank you" very often to my comrades-in-arms. We understood how we felt. Our trust in each other was the highest form of gratitude. Our willingness to die for each other was our "thank you" in its sincerest and noblest form. Indeed the purest trait of humanity, even godliness, was our willingness to lay down our lives for our fellow man. I choose to be thankful every day for the opportunity to serve with such men and women. That is why we we go to military reunions; to feel again the memory of that commitment and gratitude which never leave us. And it is why we remember the sacrifice of those of our brothers and sisters who did not return. Shakespeare understood it when he wrote, "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he to-day that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother."

I am thankful to my Heavenly Father for the trials which cause me to remember again the blessings which He has bestowed upon me. For without the bitter we do not know the sweet. I believe that this life is our opportunity to become more like Him. I think that one of the ways that we learn to be as selfless as He is, is to learn to be thankful, not only to Him, but to each other.

If we choose this day to be thankful, to see and to express our gratitude to God and to others, I believe that we will be on the road to becoming happier human beings.