Why are we so moved by gratitude? (you need to read the details)
A professor and his students organized a so-called ‘Gratitude Night’ where class members would bring a guest who had been important in their lives, but whom they had never properly thanked. The guests were not told about the reason of the event. They were three mothers, two close friends, one roommate, and a younger sister. One student said the following to her mother using a prepared written text and everybody in the room listened:
“How do we value a person? Can we measure her worth like a piece of gold, with the purest 24-karat nugget shining more brightly than the rest? If a person’s inner-worth were this apparent to everyone, I would not need to make this speech. As it is not, I would like to describe the purest soul I know: my mom… You are, however, the most genuine and pure-of-heart person I have ever met…. When complete strangers will call you to talk about the loss of their dearest pet, I am truly taken aback. Each time you speak with a bereaved person, you begin crying yourself, just as if your own pet had died. You provide comfort in a time of great loss for these people. As a child, this confused me, but I realize now that it is simply your genuine heart, reaching out in a time of need…. There is nothing but joy in my heart as I talk about the most wonderful person I know. I can only dream of becoming the pure piece of gold I believe stands before me. It is with the utmost humility that you travel through life, never once asking for thanks, simply hoping along the way people have enjoyed their time with you.”
There was literally not a dry eye in the room as the young woman kept looking at her mother, including the mother herself. (Source: Martin Seligman).
What about your eyes? How moved are you by this text? When I read this a couple of days ago, it left me reeling and thinking for hours.
Is there someone in your life, whom you have never properly thanked?
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21 Answers
My eyes remain dry. I’ve been unable to, or just haven’t cried in quite a few years now.
It seemed a bit odd to me. I wouldn’t really be able to take it seriously.
I’m sure there are many people I’ve not praised for their assisting me, though I do try to do so.
I try to make it a point to thank everyone in my life, but I realized recently when my first boss died how much he had meant to me.
How important to my development as a leader he had been, how he modeled attitudes and behavior that I admired greatly and strove to emulate.
I wrote a letter to his family telling them what his leadership had meant to me. They wrote me back that they had framed the letter.
I was sorry that I had never let him know while he was alive.
My eyes remain dry but I understand and connect to the speech – it is good that this person realizes her mother’s heart and appreciates it for what it is. When I notice that I haven’t thanked someone properly, I make sure to do so because I know that I can die at any moment or they can.
Well, the location and the medium does make a difference I think. Being in the same classroom. Reading about it in a book. Reading it online.
Many of those most deserving of gratitude are also those who never expect gratitude because they do what they do out of love, or out of a deep compassion, or because they just see it as the right thing to do. That’s why, when someone expresses to them a profound gratitude, they are almost always surprised, and often overcome with emotion.
One kind word can warm three winter months.
– Japanese proverb
I can stand in a Hallmark store and read cards that will make me tear up, so of course, yes, reading that made me tear up. (I can also stand in the aisle and laugh until I’m crying and people are staring) Being there, I would have needed the Kleenex box.
I think probably everyone has someone who they should have thanked. You go through life telling people, ‘hey thanks for helping me on this project’, ‘thanks, it’s means a lot to me’, but it’s those people that have made you a better person or changed you in some way usually over the course of a long time, that probably never truly get thanked. It happens because it did take a longer time, and it’s one of those things that goes by without you hardly realizing it. And then years later, you look back and realize what that person did for you.
My eyes (because my parents are in the same room as I am right now) are trying to stay dry. I have a friend, she’s always been standing up for me, comforting and aiding me in my times of need…and I repeatedly thanked her with my heart and with my words. But today I have betrayed her trust, and I have betrayed our friendship and my gratitude.
And yes, I do feel terrible.
We get jaded and cynical about humanity because humankind’s nastier side is so often on display. When we find evidence that our spark of goodness is still burning somewhere, it can be an emotionally overwhelming experience.
I relate this to the time when I was driving to work a few years back, and heard on the radio that someone had sighted an Ivory-billed woodpecker, long believed extinct. I immediately started crying. It had always saddened me that we had snuffed out such a beautiful creature. When you’ve come to think that something beautiful is gone for good and then it reappears, hope and optimism are rekindled.
Gratitude manifests a double goodness: it points to the way in which one person has made the life of another richer, and it shows that the recipient is tuned in to how every life is interdependent on others. Both are worth a few tears of joy.
Every year, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, it is the official time for Jews (secular and religious) to apologize and to acknowledge gratitude. It is a good thing to expand those 10 days to 365.
Has the sightings of the Ivory-billed been confirmed? I do know that we have Pileated woodpeckers here, and they are very beautiful.
There has been a resurgence of the bald eagle also.
I was moved but didn’t cry. It made me remember people from my own past and people who meant a lot to me that I can never tell that to now. But I’m emotionally drained right now, so maybe on a different day I would have cried. I’m generally easily moved by words. I also cry at poetry that’s compelling and Kahlil Gibran makes my throat ache.
My mother was alot like the mom in that story.She was a very giving ,loving,generous soul.I was able to thank her before she died.She knew how I felt and I am grateful for the opportunity to have told her :) Life is too short not to tell someone how they have affected you :))))
@belakyre – Maybe you could tell her how you feel and ask for her forgiveness?
My mom insisted…no demanded that my we (have one brother) showed gratitude. Not an option!
Back to question, the person that had the most influence on my life was my high school coach. Over the years, showed my gratitude by calling him often, visiting him, etc. Never had to say anything, coach knew that I was thankful for his guidance during a critical period in my life.
I’m profoundly glad that I expressed gratitude to my wife at every opportunity, as she was taken so suddenly. In almost all areas of my life, except social skills, I was a self-sufficient loner. It was relatively late in my life that I discovered the joy of relating intimately with another person, I have this wonderful lady to that for that.
My eyes are wet. I sometimes feel like…. well, responsible for other people’s pain—that it is my job to fix it. When I read something like this, I want to do something. In this case, I want all people who work hard to care for or help others, but do it silently, never seeking any notice—I want them all to get thanked as sincerely as that woman thanked her mother.
It wasn’t so much the thanks that were moving—we play at gratitude every day. What was moving was the detail—the reasons why she was thanking her. That’s what made it special.
Understanding what other people need and then just providing it—it’s a job that only the most secure people can do for a long time. Others require recognition in some form, or they can’t keep it up. A person who knows they make a difference—I don’t know what to say. I admire them. I envy them. I wish I could be like that. But I do thank them for showing me it is possible to achieve that state of grace.
I am fortunate to be around quite a few people that are always doing great and wonderful things for others no matter the amount of gratitude they get in return!
I learned early on to recognize and acknowledge great gifts and or efforts by people who affect my life and doing so has been a great inspiration to pay it forward in some way small or big to others that will carry that positive energy forward in life.
I’ve always been a blubber person. I cry at the slightest hint. To answer your question, I have the feeling that gratitude is probably hard wired in us from the earliest time in our evolutionary past. Those who showed the most gratitude were most likely to be chosen to procreate, and last longer in a harsh environment than others.
@YARNLADY – Yes, I think so too. Still, I’m a bit puzzled about the emotional power compared to other feelings of joy.
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