Gratitude is a great emotion because I feel as though its the compass of all the rest, or could reset such a compass.
John Israel appeared on theOneThing podcast to discuss how he challenged himself to write thank you cards.
One of the things that interesting about gratitude is that it implies a deep acceptance of things as they are.
Sometimes I feel gratitude towards the way the mountains make me feel.
We all know how John Denver resonated with the landscape of the Roaring Fork Valley, and you can hear the gratitude for landscapes in his songs, but this quote reveals he also felt a deep gratitude towards other people.
“I believe that we are here for each other, not against each other. Everything comes from an understanding that you are a gift in my life – whoever you are, whatever our differences.”
John Denver is expressing the gift like character of others in our lives. Just like the saying, “I deserved my enemies, but I don’t think I deserved my friends.” You don’t deserve a gift.
The idea of a gift kind of goes together with the idea of something being hidden. The gift that is discovered inside of the hidden egg, behind the bough of a tree — there’s something very right about the idea of gifts being unwrapped.
For example, you may not see another person as a gift at first or for the first twenty years. But when you see it, you see it and its such a revelation as though it were previously hidden, like a frame pulling into focus.
Gary Keller shares that in each shift as in market shift there is a gift. So, as the market shifts around Covid regulations, the question ought to arise, what is the gift of this shift?
So you don’t deserve a gift and you feel a feeling of gratitude.
Since the regular notion of debt and deserving, nor owed, nor borrowed, gifts have a special position –outside of economic logic — and our feeling of gratitude gifts evoke, also lead us to reflect on the limits of economic logic in containing our feelings of abundance.
Real estate keeps me attuned to both the economic dimensions of the transaction, yet–I am also essentially assisting my clients, who have all been gifts.
Annie’s Song is a great example of how landscape gratitude can inspire personal gratitude in overcoming conflict.
In Morphine’s song, In Spite of Me, you can hear the gratitude pouring out the lyrics.
