"Feeling Grateful?"

Should I be? I think that in the past on this very blog I have mistakingly told you that I was. Don't get me wrong. I don't mean that I'm ungrateful. I know that I have a great family, a great employer, and a bunch of useful(useless)material stuff. But notice the distinction. "Being" grateful is a whole lot different than "feeling" grateful. Being grateful is simply a matter of doing the math and acknowledging that you've got it pretty good; perhaps in comparison to others you know, or to other times in your own life. Or you can simply be grateful for what someone is doing for you, like when Mike wrote my post for me last night.

So right now I'm grateful in an intellectual sense but at this very moment at least I don't really feel it. The good news is that only recently have I discovered the difference. For the first time since my illness I have had a few little feelings that kind of snuck up on me. It's hard to put it into words and the moments have been very fleeting and yet I can tell you that there was a distinct difference. The bad news is I don't really know why or where they came from. I can only hope that if I keep doing the same things I'm doing that eventually those moments will become more commonplace. I kinda hope so!

Anyway in thinking this whole thing out I believe I've learned something else useful, and it's more in relation to others than to myself. How often in looking at someone else's situation have I thought that perhaps they should express more gratitude for the things in their life? In the future I'm gonna be more considerate. How can I know the entire scope of another persons burdens? As such how can I say they should "be" more grateful if they don't "feel" more grateful.

"Reason has no power against feeling."---Charlotte Perkins Gilman

...and this is one of those brilliant ones...

"It is very hard to say the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings – much harder than to say something fine about them which is not the exact truth."---George Eliot

love
peter