Living in Batmania, having endured a frigid, sodden autumn and still awaiting substantial signs of spring, you tend to hunker down and switch off until the thaw. While it’s apparently rare in Australia a touch of seasonal affective disorder (the ‘sads’) has had me prowling around in my cave. Getting up in the dark, getting home in the dark, chained to a desk in between those workbound journeys.
Like many Melburnians, I looked at the fact that Sydney played Brisbane in the AFL grand final and couldn’t help but feel that the kindly (superior) weather that those teams enjoyed may have had had a little part in that — given that the grand final’s contenders had fewer seasonal lurgies to contend with and more sunshine in which to frolic.
Putting existential angst and parochial misgivings aside (go Pies), it hit me squarely in the ego the other day that I seem to have forgotten how to be grateful; how to make peace with existence with all its shocks and arbitrariness.
To be aware of how privileged we are to live in this, the best of all possible worlds, may indeed sound Panglossian. I’m not suggesting we embrace the naïve Pollyanna optimism that misses the pitfalls and snares life has in store for us. But frankly, I’ve been scowling away for months, zipping up my coat and battening down my scarf and beanie.
If, like me, you tend to tally up the wrongs and ills of the shuttled journey through your given days, perhaps you also need to balance out your worldview with a broader perspective. For me, simply put, I need to chill out. I need to make ample elbow room for wonder, recognition and appreciation; as a venerable Chinese proverb put it, ‘When you drink from the stream, remember the spring’.
We all take hits. There are situations we become mired in that suck. Times when we are slighted or taken for granted. Instances when we are wronged or injured, impacted by unfair or thoughtless actions. That’s all part of trucking down the human road.
Perhaps the most bizarre — and ironically, the healthiest — response is to face those times squarely and even see them as opportunities for growth. I think of Yeshua, the travelling miracle worker and rabbi, sharing his last supper with 12 of his best mates and being grateful for it, even in the company of his betrayer and fellas who he probably guessed would bolt at the first sign of trouble, deny and doubt him.
I don’t know how you would rate yourselves, but having the maturity to recognise the reality of our circumstances and still be thankful — that’s beyond me at times. It does give me a yardstick to aim at, and something to aspire to. It was Caesar’s old sparring partner Marcus Tullius Cicero who opined that ‘Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others’.
'Being grateful — being possessed with the sheer joy of breathing, of being alive — may well lead us to discover and respect the truth that sorrow and heartache don’t define or limit us. We exist beyond our capacity to overcome trials, and we owe much to many.'
There are tangible benefits to being able to thank others, despite our circumstances. Our personal relationships are enhanced, our engagement with workmates improves; researchers go so far as to postulate that gratitude changes ‘the neural structures in our brain, and make[s] us feel happier and more content’ — no mean feat.
Are you tired of wearing negativity like a cloak? Dragging hate, anger, sorrow and world weariness in your train? Getting over life’s inevitable slights and wounds is restorative, if we can find our way to grace. To forgive, if not forget.
To sigh, smile and move on.
‘It is through gratitude for the present moment that the spiritual dimension of life opens up,’ suggested Eckhart Tolle. Tolle is a chap who suggests we can become aware of the thoughts that make us anxious and make a choice to step out of those thoughts. In that consciousness of choice, Tolle echoes that tentmaker extraordinaire St Paul, who told the Romans to rejoice in their suffering, as ‘suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.’
It was Carl Jung (a gnomic sage whom I’ve expounded upon previously) who most famously advised humans to be grateful for adversity, ‘difficulties and challenges, for they hold blessings … [difficulties] are necessary for health, personal growth, individuation and self-actualisation.’
Being grateful — being possessed with the sheer joy of breathing, of being alive — may well lead us to discover and respect the truth that sorrow and heartache don’t define or limit us. We exist beyond our capacity to overcome trials, and we owe much to many.
It's in the awareness of that reality that we transcend our bitterness and spiritual poverty. Well before he was executed for his part in trying to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that it is ‘only with gratitude that life becomes rich’. Bonhoeffer could have sat out the Second World War in comfort on a different continent; grateful for his life, he gave it to trying to serve others.
One day, and that day will come for all of us, we will cease to be. We will not speak; we will not exert any conscious force or impact in our world. Yet even in our absence from the living, we may still influence those whom we love and have supported; if we have chosen grace rather than bitterness.
In the meantime, while life roils and spring arrives, why don’t we take a leaf out of the verbose tomes of Marcel Proust? ‘Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.’
Barry Gittins is a Melbourne writer.