I read a beautiful story this morning about an elderly YouTuber. He loves to post videos about his gardening. In December, he decided to create individual “thank you” videos to each and every one of his subscribers. He had almost 2,000 subscribers, so that act was daunting, in itself. Now he has 897,000 followers because the story of his gratitude has gone viral.
Why is it so hard for us to express our gratitude when there is such a hunger for it in this world? I think that is why we love our pets so much. Every day, my husband has gotten up and gone to work to support our family for almost 25 years and who in the family is the most excited and thrilled and thankful to see him when he comes home every evening? – Our dogs.
I have told you before, readers, and I want to say it again. Thank you so much for supporting my blog. I look at the numbers of it every day. I question myself and my motives when I do this. Is it an ego thing? There is an element of that to it, I am sure. As much as I would like to be, I’m not above having an ego. I am human. But there is a bigger part of me, who is so grateful for the connection. When I see people have taken their precious time in their days to spend some time reading my blog, that means something. It is a gift to me and it makes me feel heard, understood and appreciated. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, for that.
Every one of us has had a myriad of people who have helped get us to where we are today. Our families, our friends, our teachers, our preachers, our bosses, the authors of the books we have read, the actors of the shows we’ve watched, and even the jerks whose actions have taught us to stand up for ourselves, are all precious beings who have played a part in our own individual “becoming.” Why is gratitude for this in such scarcity, that 800,000 people would join a stranger’s YouTube channel, in hopes for an individual, sincere “thank you”? Honestly, we should be living our lives in the spirit of gratitude. We aren’t in this thing called Life alone and not one of us would be where we are today if it weren’t for the precious gifts of the other people sharing our experience. We aren’t living in a vacuum.
I had a college professor who loved to proclaim that once a certain level of material needs are met, people don’t work for money. As young, foolish college students, we would snicker at this proclamation. He would tell us that if we were to become successful in life, we would have to understand that people have a real need to be appreciated. Why does it sometimes take until middle age or maybe even older, to fully realize this? If we feel a hungering for appreciation, why would it be any different for any other being sharing the experience of Living Life?
I wonder what it would be like to sincerely express thankfulness to everyone who touches our lives today. To actually look them in the eye, without a phone connected to our ears, and to truly show how grateful we are for the part they are playing in our Life’s experience. I wonder if that feeling of gratitude might almost be overwhelming. Perhaps that may be the reason why we avoid the act of gratefulness as much as we do – to the point that it has become a real rarity. I don’t know, but I am mustering up the courage to give it a try. It will probably be wonderful.