Gratitude and the good life

Of course this is not the first time ever that I am writing about gratitude.  In this post two years ago, I quoted this excerpt:

Gratitude is the truest approach to life. We did not create or fashion ourselves. We did not birth ourselves. Life is about giving, receiving, and repaying. We are receptive beings, dependent on the help of others, on their gifts and their kindness.

Life is about giving, receiving, and repaying.  And paying it forward.

Gratitude is not merely mouthing "thanks."  Not at all.  People often seem to mistake the "thanks" that is often the lubricant in social interactions with gratitude itself.  There is the etiquette of "thanks" and then there is gratitude.  In another post, more recent, I included another quote:

[In] societies, like the Tamil one, that are based on reciprocity as a fundamental social principle, morality and etiquette are inextricably linked. In the modern West, by contrast, etiquette and morality are distinct domains, and although gratitude might be a moral question, thanking someone is frequently just a matter of good manners. Apparently similar kinds of awkwardness might therefore conceal dramatically different moral assumptions about the appropriate currency for the giving of thanks.

Which then led to this:

What’s clear is that gratitude deeply intersects with a culture’s attitude about the self and its relation to others. Are we individuals forging our own paths, or members of a larger whole?

If all that didn't make you think about gratitude, I will add this to the mix:

In considering moral character, the Roman orator Cicero said: ‘Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.’ And while I think it’s an overstatement, Cicero’s view does offer up the tantalising prospect that, simply by cultivating gratitude, other virtues will grow.

As a simple exercise, think about any of the people in your own lives who are virtuous according to your own definitions.  Forget a Gandhi or a King or any of the larger-than-life people.  People from our daily lives. A genuine sense of gratitude plays a part, right?  And this is not something you see in the current President of the United States, correct?

In Pondicherry, the hotel where we stayed was--yes, you guessed it--Gratitude.  The spiritual connection is obvious there.  One does not need to go to a spiritual leader in order to understand how gratitude can guide one's life.  But, humans that we are, even the religious often forget this and instead fight to live a life of "me, me, me."  They will have to sort that out with their own gods.  I want to make sure that I repay my debts, and pay forward as well in this only life that I have.