


As with every Thanksgiving, news consumers nationwide have braced themselves once more for a deluge of articles on the positive effects of expressing gratitude.
Gratitude will help you sleep better ! Gratitude will improve your relationships ! Gratitude will make you rich !
BIDEN MIGHT BE DEMOCRATS' BIGGEST PROBLEM CONVINCING BLACK AND LATINO VOTERS NOT TO SUPPORT TRUMPAnd that’s all true. There's real science behind this.
But this reduction of gratitude to simply another item on a self-care agenda is a perversion of the concept. While gratitude is indeed beneficial to the self ( it will help you live longer ! It will revive your sex life !), its primary function is to direct one’s energies toward something beyond oneself. In its traditional form, gratitude is a fundamentally self-decreasing act, one that frees us from vanity and pride and the incessant self-regard common to present-day America.
And yet, in our post-Christian, pop-psych culture, gratitude is often framed as a tool of “self-help,” while the virtues traditionally associated with the term — self-sacrifice, generosity, and magnanimity — are largely forgotten.
The great Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero once said that “gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” This claim is certainly true. Wisdom, justice, courage, even happiness: none of these are possible for a person consumed with self-regard. Only a grateful person is capable of wisdom, for wisdom entails acknowledgment of the gift of existence — we did not earn this right to exist, and yet, inexplicably, existence is ours. Only a grateful person is capable of conceiving justice, for justice entails the acknowledgment of a universal standard to which we are all subject, which is a praiseworthy truth indeed.
In contrast to Cicero, the French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre famously glorified self-centeredness when he wrote in his 1944 play No Exit that “hell is other people.” It would be difficult, if not impossible, to articulate a philosophy more at odds with the traditional virtue of gratitude, not to mention the imaginative vision of Christianity, which is symbolically represented by a cross of self-sacrifice.
But we are in Sartre’s world now. The mass alienation caused by digital technology, as typified by airport terminals in which large masses of individuals huddle together and ignore one another in favor of their screens, would no doubt cause Sartre to feel a sense of triumph. We have built a culture around his famous contention, and we suffer for it more with each passing day.
Indeed, even our modern conception of gratitude is marked by its apparent advantages to the self. The ostensibly altruistic act has been emptied of its altruism; gratitude only seems to interest us to the extent that it gratifies the self.
The traditional conception of gratitude is due for a revival. More than a means to some other end, such as a better night’s sleep or a higher salary, traditional gratitude is a good in and of itself, and therefore of a higher moral order.
To be grateful is to bask in the light of eternal truths, particularly the awareness of a creator who loves us madly and who journeyed to depths of Godforsakenness for our sake. To be grateful is to break free from the shackles of self-centeredness that have imprisoned postmodern man and that grow tighter with each passing day. To be grateful is to be fully human and fully alive. It is its own reward. And how great it is.
Perhaps the great 20th century Catholic monk Thomas Merton said it best: “To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us. And He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. And that is what makes all the difference.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM RESTORING AMERICAPeter Laffin is a contributor at the Washington Examiner. His work has also appeared in RealClearPolitics, the Catholic Thing, and the National Catholic Register.