Life is better when you are in a constant state of gratitude.
I saw that line on a video a while back, and it has been sitting with me ever since. It is true. And like most true one liners, the interesting part is underneath it.
Because gratitude is not one thing. Over the years I have come to see it wearing four different faces.
The first face is gratitude as a measuring stick. Your growth is gradual, so you rarely notice it happening. Gratitude is how you catch up with yourself. When you stop and give thanks for where you are, you finally see how far you have come.
The second face is gratitude for what will not last. Nothing is permanent. The people at your table, the health in your body, the ordinary Tuesday that feels like nothing special. You never know when things will change.
Gratitude is the right response to impermanence. It honours what is here, while it is here.
The third face is the hard one. The gratitude that arrives years late.
I have written before about losing my mate Ian, taken too soon. Only years later could I say I was grateful for where that path change led me. I can see that his spirit and mine had an agreement. The human in me still struggles with it.
Both of those things are true at once, and that is allowed. Some chapters can only be thanked in hindsight, and some of them take decades.
And the fourth face is the everyday one. Quiet moments where you reflect, give thanks, and get on with your day. No announcement, no performance. Just a habit, practised in private, like brushing your teeth.
So what about the constant part?
I will be straight with you. I am not in a constant state of gratitude. Nobody is. We drift, we grumble, we take things for granted, and that includes me.
Constancy is not a place you live. It is a place you keep returning to.
The practice is the returning. Every time you notice you have drifted, and come back to thankfulness, you have done the whole exercise.
That is what the line on the video really means. Life is better when gratitude is the place you keep coming home to.
What was the moment gratitude landed for you about a chapter you would not have chosen?
Please share your story or ask any questions.