Gratefulness Is More About the Future Than the Past
Giving thanks for the generosities, courtesies, and sacrifices others have extended is what grateful people do.
Acknowledging and giving thanks for the benefits and good fortune one has received suggests a person who is highly aware of just how lucky they are to know those who are willing to put their own needs aside to help others, including them.
Expressing gratefulness is usually reserved for acts of kindness that have already occurred. Gratefulness is more commonly considered a recognition of the past, rather than an acknowledgment of the future.
But to be truly grateful is to think differently about time. This kind of gratitude is more about giving thanks for what will happen than it is in paying homage to acts that have already transpired.
The reasons we feel grateful are typically about what bounties in life we currently enjoy because of others. However, upon reflection, we can see that these reasons, feelings, and expressions truly shape our expectations and outlook. As a result of the good fortune we have received, the future is full of opportunities, learning, and growth.
The highest expression of gratefulness is recognizing what lies ahead and cultivating a positive outlook of what is in store for us. It turns "thanks" into "thankfulness" and creates an optimism about the future that pays tribute to the past but focuses on the good fortune yet to come.
When we are truly grateful, those around us can sense the awe and optimism we have even with the future’s uncertainties. This energizes others and inspires the kind of hope they need to become more grateful, as well. As the old maxim goes, ”A grateful mind is a great mind that eventually attracts to itself great things."
Gratefulness is best expressed by paying it forward. When tragedy struck our family with the birth of a son who had no sight, hearing, nor purposeful movement of any kind many years ago, his primary nurse at Children's Hospital in D.C. was indispensable to our family.
I invited her to dinner at our home. After, over coffee and cake, I expressed our gratitude. THEN I asked her how I could possibly thank her. Her answer has stayed in my heart and mind for forty plus years. "Every single day try to do at least one random act of kindness. Then, when they ask you how they can thank you, ask them to do what I am doing now. Ask them to join the "CLUB". Brad, will you join the CLUB and do this too? Simply, do the random act of kindness, reach out your hand when asked how you want to be thanked, and ask if he or she will join the CLUB", she said.
Pay it forward. When you do that you are showing the highest degree of gratitude. Will you join the CLUB?