There is a simpler word for gratitude, but the word is generally seen in a more abstract light. Gratitude is love.

We didn’t make ourselves. We are not the source of our own advent. We still exist due to a process that we can’t really control and we don’t need to. Gratitude is faith, present centered faith. People struggle with the idea of faith. They think it means they hope for something in the future. Faith can be right now. It can give you peace right now.

Research into performance psychology suggests that we do not do our best when on edge. Contrary to what some believe, our bodies and minds function best when happy, when relaxed. People believe it’s hard to be happy. They think it’s dependant on something, but right now, not moments ago or moments from now.

What is wrong? Is their anything wrong right now, this moment, for any of us? Our thinking makes something wrong. Our feeling only responds to our thinking or our senses. Thinking is a sense like hearing or sight. We don’t believe that we have to see everything. In school we took geography. We know those places exist even though we have never seen them. Our consciousness undisturbed is happy. It’s our default or at rest state.

I am forced to paraphrase a concept, but it is a good one. All problems stem from our inability to remain in a room alone quietly. It isn’t doing or seeking. We have alot of our anxiety about doing from what we think others expect and they think the same of us. If both people could be grateful just for the contact, just for the being and for the other being. Then what? How does the world look then?

As a child I once asked my father, “Isn’t being enough?” He answered with an emphatic, “No.” He explained that I had responsibilities, that he did and that we had to do things even if we didn’t want to. I am not certain that is true. I have been so despondent as to want no action at all, yet something inside me moved me to act anyway. I think we will act no matter what occurs. Is it our nature doing absolutely nothing? Well, for me it’s not possible.

Though I think we can take guidance from starting at zero. We get ahead of ourselves. We think we can find our true path in doing what we have to. Yet it’s just as commonly said that the only thing we have to do is live until we die. We ignore even that morbid insight. Gratitude can guide us to right action. I dare say it is the only guide. Gratitude for our own natures, our hearts and minds. Gratitude for the force that brings us together with other human beings. Gratitude for the common ground we share and the diversity of virtues in the community as a whole. Thinking on gratitude seems to give plenty of grounds for action. Does it not?

If we act for a different reason then gratitude what comes of it? When I give from obligation it seems at best a numb neutrality even if only subtly, it lessens me. A life of obligation? What is that like? When I give from gratitude, it is joy and rather than lessening me it seems to energize me. Even in the strictly pragmatic sense to make my being and doing go so much better. Is this anyone else’s experience?

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~