ON BEING GRATEFUL........

Gratitude

What is the definition of gratitude? How can we be grateful when life keeps handing us lemons? How much lemonade can we make?

GRATITUDE is - Making something of beauty out of what we do have, incomplete as it may be.
The Mussar teachings on the attitude of gratitude are tough, because they don't let us feel sorry for ourselves, no matter how little we may have. One Mussar master began a talk with a thump on the table and the words, "It is enough that a human being is alive!" Then he ended his talk right there.

There is a story -- maybe an urban legend, but full of truth nonetheless -- concerning the famous violinist Itzhak Perlman.
One evening, Perlman was in New York to give a concert. As a child he had been stricken with polio and getting on stage is no small feat for him. He wears braces on both legs and walks with two crutches. Perlman crossed the stage painfully slowly, until he reached the chair in which he seated himself to play.
As soon as he appeared on stage that night, the audience applauded and then waited respectfully as he made his way slowly across the stage. He took his seat, signaled to the conductor, and began to play.
No sooner had he finished the first few bars than one of the strings on his violin snapped with a report like gunshot. At that point, Perlman was close enough to the beginning of the piece that it would have been reasonable to bring the concert to a halt while he replaced the string to begin again. But that's not what he did. He waited a moment and then signaled the conductor to pick up just where they had left off.
Perlman now had only three strings with which to play his soloist part. He was able to find some of the missing notes on adjoining strings, but where that wasn't possible, he had to rearrange the music on the spot in his head so that it all still held together.
He played with passion and artistry, spontaneously rearranging the symphony right through to the end. When he finally rested his bow, the audience sat for a moment in stunned silence. And then they rose to their feet and cheered wildly. They knew they had been witness to an extraordinary display of human skill and ingenuity.
Perlman raised his bow to signal for quiet. "You know," he said, "sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much beautiful music you can still make with what you have left."
We have to wonder, was he speaking of his violin strings or his crippled body? And is it true only for artists? We are all lacking something, and so we are all challenged to answer the question: Do we have the attitude of making something of beauty out of what we do have, incomplete as it may be?
The Hebrew term for gratitude is hikarat hatov, which means, literally, "recognizing the good." Practicing gratitude means recognizing the good that is already yours.
If you've lost your job, but you still have your family and health, you have something to be grateful for.
If you can't move around except in a wheelchair but your mind is as sharp as ever, you have something to be grateful for.
If you've broken a string on your violin, and you still have three more, you have something to be grateful for.
When you open up to the trait of gratitude, you see clearly and accurately how much good there is in your life. Gratitude affirms. Those things you are lacking are still there, and in reaching for gratitude no one is saying you ought to put on rose-colored glasses to obscure those shortcomings. But most of us tend to focus so heavily on the deficiencies in our lives that we barely perceive the good that counterbalances them.
The Hasidic teacher Rebbe Nachman of Breslov writes, "Gratitude rejoices with her sister joy and is always ready to light a candle and have a party. Gratitude doesn't much like the old cronies of boredom, despair and taking life for granted."
There is no limit to what we don't have and if that is where we put our focus, then our lives will inevitably be filled with endless dissatisfaction. This is the meaning that lies behind the great biblical proverb, "Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their own lot" (Pirkei Avot 4:1).
When you live charged with gratitude, you will give thanks for anything or anyone who has benefited you, whether they meant to or not. Imagine a prayer of thanks springing to your lips when the driver in the car next to you lets you merge without protest, or when the water flows from the tap, or the food is adequate?
When gratitude is this well established, it is a sign of a heart that has been made right and whole. Gratitude can't coexist with arrogance, resentment, and selfishness.
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I've decided to try my best and be grateful - not only for the obvious, but for those things that I thought were not benefiting me - and as I live my life, day by day, I see that even those experiences that bought me pain, have also bought me joy, and and have certainly been a teacher to me. So I am learning from each experience.
And I am grateful.

(subject matter and parts of this article were taken from the writing of Dr. Alan Morinis - "The Path of the Soul")