The Problem with Thankfulness

// February 8th, 2009 // Glenn

I was taught from an early age that it’s a great thing to be thankful.  Whether I was thanking God or thanking a person, this was a “good thing” to do.  By reminding myself of all the good stuff in my life (including things we often take for granted like health, clean water, shelter etc.) I would often feel happy and content.

Some Buddhist friends I have been talking to lately have explained to me that they also teach to be thankful, and they even take it a step further.  A common Buddhist thought is to “live in the moment”, and the idea here is to experience and find joy in everything you do, even if you are simply sitting alone in a plain room.  I find this similar to being thankful for your life.

The problem is apathy.  I have found that the more thankful I am, the more content I am, the less drive I have to make a change.  I suppose it’s debatable whether a person is happier by convincing himself that life is already perfect or by getting out and doing/creating/fixing/inventing something to make life better.  Regardless of whether this makes someone happier, thankfulness definitely seems to stifle innovation.

I wonder if this concept was created long ago to help people survive their miserable lives (e.g. by saying “sure, you’re hungry, but be thankful you are healthy”) and it has just hung on over the years.  I’m convinced that many of our current beliefs have a similar, dubious conception.

So should I try to pick and choose my thankfulness?  Should I try to be thankful when I’m in an uncomfortable environment that I don’t care to improve?  And save my creative thinking for places I like (like home)?  It’s probably more of a moment by moment thing, a balancing act, a “shade of grey”.

One Response to “The Problem with Thankfulness”

  1. terry says:
    February 8, 2009 at 1:04 pm

    thankfulness = conscious of benefit received

    The definition of thankfulness suggests that this is a state of

    mind. Not just any part of the mind, But the logical mind, the

    newly evolved thing that made Darwin begin to look at species or

    that caused Copernicus to disbelieve his training.
    Since we are mammals, we were long time ago unsentient, still

    social creatures, still milk producing, but not aware of abstract

    thought processes.
    Is “thankfulness” and abstract thought process? This state of

    mind is not associated with the three basic human needs, namely

    reproduction, food , nor housing(adaptation to our climate or

    whatever you want to call housing).
    The argument of “thankfulness” when invoked by the net search

    engines (google,altavista) appears to be associated with

    religions.
    One thing that I have noticed when in a forced wait

    condition,(for example the doctors office waiting room), My mind

    is restricted to the absolute moment, sometimes a clock,

    sometimes the receptionist inside the slide window, sometimes the

    tiles on the floor, or the bricks in the wall. This thought takes

    me back to eight years old and the big wooden pews that had

    infinite pattern of wood grain. These thoughts are inextricably

    associated with the forced waiting for church to be over. In

    those days school and church were run by the same masters and the

    overall message to me was ystfu. When I was binded into a

    physical place and controlled with fear mentally , no visible

    sign of anything was allowed. At that time the master would begin

    with the message “be thankful”, while I was intrigued by the

    infinite wood grain pattern between my legs. (a boy is made to

    put his head down quite a ways to pray).
    It seems that my masters had determined that first of all , my

    mind could be abstract at eight years old, in fact I was forced

    to be thankful, and secondly they predetermined that thankfulness

    was good for them. Note here that no proof exists about good for

    me, but lots of proof (do the net search again if you forgot

    where this logic came from) exists about good for them. My own

    experience from “thankfulness” is that wood is made from a plant

    growing on a fantastically beautiful planet called earth. That

    place was later closed and the pews were installed into another

    church far away. Myself wants to imagine that this early

    thankfulness training was thought control , plain and simple mind

    control game. As I write this however, I realize that the thought

    control for me failed. Indeed was it a stupid waist of time? Not

    at all. Remember that all of us are forced from time to time into

    a box. It may be while driving heavy traffic. It may be the

    doctors office. It may be because of an illness and being stuck

    flat on your back. When that happens it is a good thing to return

    to the planets forests if only in one’s mind (and this is a mind

    thing as mentioned above) to imagine the infinite patterns of

    plant life, or if you are outdoors savy, then look at the star

    systems in which this planet exists. Our conscious mind strives

    to know things from earliest conception. The downside is that our

    conscious mind will eventually, hopefully someday figure out that

    it cannot possibly learn all that there is to know. When one’s

    mind concludes there are infinite facts of life, then the retreat

    location is a controlled place you have already encountered.

    Hopefully your retreat location was a tranquil place, perhaps

    staring into a forest stream watching the endless patterns

    changing your face. If your thoughts return to the organized

    religion structure, you are in fact caught in a circle of warp.
    So how is it with you? ??
    So how is it with me? I am caught in the eddy of organized

    religion most of the time. Sometimes I can go right thru that

    sahara of two thousand year old dogma, and pop out on the

    otherside in the forest. No , I do not smoke, and there is no

    alcohol powerful enough to propel me there. I am thankful that I

    can get there on some days.

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