Lately, I've been thinking a lot about what it means to truly live in gratitude. Cliché, I know—everyone expresses how grateful they are on their social media pages, on their loved ones' birthday posts, or an engagement announcement. Apart from the cultural milestones of our lives, though, how often do we really engage in gratitude on the daily?
I'll be the first to admit that I'm a culprit of mindlessness. When I make breakfast in the morning, I'm not paying much attention to the bread in the toaster or the eggs in the pan, and, when I bite into them, I'm certainly not heavily contemplating anything except my to-do list. But, the other day was different, and I'm still not entirely sure why.
On this other day, the eggs crackled in oil and the toaster creaked with heat, as they ordinarily do, and I began to pore over their origins. I mean, where do the hens live that grow the eggs, and were they born there, too? In what fields were the wheat, barley, and oats sown? Someplace in Ohio, or further south past the peach orchards in Georgia?
And, as usually happens with me, I followed these thoughts down their long and winding paths. The arugula that was piled on my plate had spent six weeks stretching and rising from the dirt before it was ready to be eaten. It takes a hen 26 hours to grow just one egg, and there are 12 eggs in your typical carton sold in the U.S. There I was, chowing down on 52 hours of labor and love, on a mother's eggs, without thanking her for her sacrifice. How careless I had been, I realized. How absent-minded and entitled to the luxuries and beauties of the world I had become.
Not only was I grateful to the chickens, but also the land and plants that fed them. I stared into the green tea leaves that I had steeped in warm water just minutes ago and thought of the arduous process of planting, growing, harvesting, drying, packaging, mailing, and, finally, selling the tea leaves. I felt an enormous surge of gratitude for the soil that nurtured the tea plants, as well as for the hands of the people who so lovingly tended to the plants and so carefully conducted the complicated drying process so that others, like myself, who live halfway across the world, can enjoy the taste of quality green tea.
It felt like the world was opening to me, like the way a swarm of sunflowers greets the rising sun on the dawn of a summer day. It was sudden and delicious. Gratitude for the earth and workers who grow and harvest the cotton sewn into our clothes. Gratitude for the people who do the stitching and weaving, the packaging and mailing. Gratitude for the consistent legs who, day in and day out, make deliveries to our doorsteps. This sentiment melted into everything—every item in my apartment, every grocery in my fridge, every bit of makeup and skincare resting in my medicine cabinet. Whose sweat and blood made it possible for these items to now belong to me?
And listen, I was raised in an Irish and Italian Catholic family. At each meal, we said Grace, thanking the higher powers that be for the food on our table, the roofs over our head, the company we keep, and our good health. Somewhere along the way, as I got older, the mindfulness in my prayer dissolved, and the words became just that—words, a habit, a ritual, and not much else.
Then, my thoughts ventured to my body, to my strong lower back and nimble hands. I experienced a newfound glory in my ability to point my toes, squat, dance, and chase my cats around free from any intense aches or pains, save for my occasional chronic autoimmune flare-ups. In fact, I've found that living with chronic pain helps me feel even more grateful for those times that my body is permitted to move about, flawlessly pain-free. There is nothing quite like rising, time and time again, from the depths of a flare-up, utterly exhausted but teary-eyed with hope that your body will love itself again.
Now, I promise, I wasn't on an ayahuasca trip or dosing acid on this otherwise very ordinary July morning when these feelings of gratitude overtook me. Some of you are probably thinking, "what an ungrateful little shrub you've been." You also might be thinking, "of course I already live in gratitude, I don't take anything for granted." Both are fair points and probably hold, at least, a little bit of truth. Nonetheless, I ask that you stick with me for a minute or so longer.
Life deals us hard blows. It also deals us light, quick blows that heal as quickly as they came. Still, no matter the intensity of a hit, we wobble. See where I'm going with this?
To live in mindfulness and gratitude in every waking moment is difficult because our daily lives get hectic and stressful. Each punch that we absorb, whether it be a shitty day at work or something more extreme, serves as a distraction from a mindful lifestyle. On those kinds of days, it's challenging to remain in a grateful state of mind because our brains are reeling from the negativity, chaos, grief, or pain that dominated our attention since we woke up.
But, I think living in mindfulness and gratitude is even more necessary on shitty days. I don't think pain and mindfulness are mutually exclusive. If you are able to appreciate the story behind your morning coffee (who harvested, roasted, the beans?) and give thanks to those who made it possible for you to drink it, I bet that you'll feel a glimmer of happiness or luck on a bad day. Even if that glimmer only lasts a minute, it brings you back down to earth. That's what gratitude does.
What I'm trying to say is, it all comes down to respecting the history behind things, places, people—understanding that nothing emerges from a vacuum, that everything has a story, and that peoples' behavior is often a cumulation of their life experiences. When we can visualize, say, a carrot's journey to our kitchen, we're able to comprehend just how magical that carrot is.
The same goes for a new friend. Who were they as a child or teenager? Do you feel closer to them, or perhaps more appreciative of them, when you learn about their life's story? Can you cultivate a renewed sense of gratitude for yourself, as you are now, after recounting your life's journey? Can you see yourself in a new, more graceful and loving, light?
Alright, this tangent has run its course. Or has it? I could probably keep writing, but instead, I'll end with this: there are things in this life that we struggle with (and that's a fact!), but there are equally as many things, people, and experiences that are treasures. Some of the little gifts in my life are my all-time favorite songs, the fresh roses gathered in a vase on my nightstand, and the birds singing outside my window in the morning. They can be big things, little things, and everything in between. Think about them, give them your time, and don't let them pass you by.
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