Gratitude
Peter Crabbe

Shakespeare has said, “Nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”

Today’s world is so much more evidentiary focused – and by that, I mean what you see, the events you experience – those tangible mortal material things you can point to and say, “Yeah? Look at this? How are you going to spin this into gratitude? How do you rethink COVID into good?  Shakespeare never met a Hitler!”

We’ve lost our way in today’s extreme society – everything is viewed from the cold hard science of empirical evidence – you don’t think there were plagues and bad nasty people in Shakespeare’s day?

If someone has grace and gratitude today, they are seen either as a clueless but kind individual – or simply clueless.
How do we maintain a grateful mindset in a world that focuses and promotes negative drama?

The first step is to see that our minds are prone to disaster-focus. We have airlines that fly thousands of flights a day – but we focus on the one crash in a year. We have a world where billions of things go right – but we overwhelmingly report the wrong.

Sure, it’s important to fix the wrong – but it is important to accept and acknowledge and be grateful for the right!
Have you ever looked at our freeway system, for example, and thought, “Wow – the planning and work and the upkeep to keep this system together is insane! People have created smooth roads for us to travel anywhere on the entire continent. What a convenience!”

Usually we only notice when something goes wrong, “Damn road work – I’m going to be late!”

Grocery stores! What a miracle! Food is brought to us – we have multiple choices! The work that goes into the growing and harvesting, trucking, placing on shelves and making available to us is immense!

Usually we only mention the grocery store in terms of “They were out of the bread I wanted, so I had to buy this.”

One of the things we need to do is to train ourselves away from the negative. The old saying goes you believe what you see and see what you believe. If you believe in good things – you are considered foolish or too soft. For years when I was writing professionally the knock on me was that I was too optimistic, too positive, and therefore too soft of a writer.
What does that say about Hollywood and what they believe about us? They are profit based and they think that unless you are writing a kids show for Disney – you have to be cynical and dark – and the age they target for optimism and hope keeps lowering. Kids movies of today have a good dose of cynical sarcasm in order for them to be four quadrant movies (movies which will appeal to all demographics).

Gratitude for our country has really been hit – somehow the United States is seen as a place that owes everybody everything, is deeply flawed, has victimized everyone and no one wants to say a pledge, sing a national anthem while standing, or have a sense of pride and gratitude.

Our country is an idea – it’s a great idea – the people who have carried out this idea are human and flawed. Many here have done great jobs and have tried to push the country to higher manifestations of its potential. But standing for the national anthem is a moment where we can come together in unified gratitude for the promise of the country – for the promise of humanity – if you stand and love your country it is not saying “Everything is OK.” It is saying even though there are areas where we need to improve, how great it is that we live in a country where I can express my feelings, I can help it get better, I can be grateful for the country and still make it better.

And guess what – more change will come faster with gratitude than complaint.

Have you ever bought a car and suddenly, from the moment you bought that car you start to see your make and model everywhere?

You have become conscious of that make and model, so you recognize it everywhere. I remember when my wife got pregnant with our first child, I could not believe how many pregnant women I suddenly saw. It wasn’t luck or happenstance – it was the fact I was conscious of it – those women would have been there anyway, but I was seeing them now.

The same holds true with gratitude – if you live in a grateful and graceful consciousness – you will see reasons to be grateful everywhere – its axiomatic. It takes a bit of discipline and you may have to fight off demons for a while, but it is true – “Nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”


Peter Crabbe is a writer living in California.