If I said "I'm grateful ..." and
stopped
there, you may (after a pause,
waiting
for the other shoe to drop) ask "Grateful? ... For what? -
like you're expecting me to complete something which I'd started saying
but then
stopped,
leaving it unfinished. You'd surmise if I said "I'm grateful", then I
must be grateful for something. No one can be just
grateful - period - without there being something for
which they're grateful, yes? Being grateful always has "for something".
Now not only is that not true, but there's actually
great power
in being grateful, without being grateful for anything specific
necessarily. In this essay I'd lke to flesh out this possibility: the
possibility of being grateful - period - without being grateful for
something specific. Then we can also explore being grateful for
something specific. All of us already know about being grateful for
something specific. It's the possibility of being grateful -
period - that's the new one.
When I'm grateful for something, like
our friendship
for example, I say "I'm grateful for
our friendship.".
That tells you
our friendship
is
a gift
to me (which is to say that I experience it as
a gift),
that I'm honored by it, that I'm enriched by it, that I'm delighted by
it inter alia. Taking a slightly subtler slice at this: when I'm
grateful for something
(our friendship
for example), all of these qualities
show up
along with it as well:
giftedness,
honor, enrichment, delight etc.
At first glance, it may seem as if all these qualities only
show up
when I receive
the gift
of
our friendship.
Indeed they may. But where do they
show up?
They all
show upin my experience. They're called forth by
our friendship,
yet they
show up
in my experience, and ... I am
the source
of my experience.
So what I'm urging you to try on here and see if there's a fit for the
idea,
is this: be grateful in such a way that
giftedness,
honor, enrichment, delight etc
show up
as components of being grateful but not of being grateful for
anything specific necessarily. In other words, don't impose
any limits on yourself to having
the power
and the possibility of being grateful, only when you're grateful
for something. Just ... be ... grateful - as pure
experience -
for no reason.
I'm grateful for a lot of things:
my children,
my family,
my friends,
the people
I'm in partnership with etc. The list is too long to recite
exhaustively. So with that said, of all the things I'm grateful for,
I'm grateful for having the opportunity to be
alive
on
the planet
at the same time as you. I'm particularly grateful for having the
opportunity to be
alive
on
the planet
at the same time as
Werner
(and being
alive
on
the planet
at the same time as
Werner,
calls forth even finer qualities than
giftedness,
honor, enrichment, and delight). That's what I'm grateful for. That's
where I stand in simply ... being ... grateful - period - for
absolutely nothing in particular, just ... being ... grateful. And if
there must be a for, I'm also grateful for being
alive
on
the planet
at the same time as you.
This is such a
momentoushappening
that it can easily be taken for granted ie it could easily be
overlooked entirely. The onset of transformation could have
happened
in any place at any time in history. But no,
it happenedhere, and
it happenednow - with you, with me,
with Werner.
That's awesome. It's truly something to be deeply grateful for.
Of all the things you and I could be grateful for, this ranks right up
there. Be grateful for it. Or: just be grateful. Period.