True Thankfulness: The Life Of Contentment, Modesty, and Appreciation

Thankfulness, what is thankfulness? Are you living a life of thankfulness? Have you ever wondered what it really means? Well, let’s conceptualise it. True thankfulness is manifested in self-transcendence; the state where we elevate beyond self to manifest wellbeing and blessedness in others, the people we encounter in our daily lives. Thankfulness is an awareness that inspires us to pursue our daily life experiences with expressions of appreciation portrayed as contentment, modesty, gratitude, and communion in the offering of service and charitability to humanity and all of nature.

But bear in mind that contentment is the ability to find sufficiency in all things when we have exhausted all efforts, choices, and opportunities. It is a state of altruism in which one finds fulfilment, sufficiency, and happiness in all circumstances and selflessly strive to manifest wellbeing for all humanity and nature. So, contentment is not lazy, it is not lackadaisical, never selfish, and most importantly, very modest.

Modesty is being in moderation with the expressions and disclosures of your endowments. Modesty is being humble, empathic and disciplined enough to keep your ego in check and avoid mocking, disrespecting, taunting, or bullying others for not being at your level life; for not having all the beautiful, sophisticated, and expensive things or great achievements, awards and accolades you have acquired. Simply put, modesty does not flaunt or flash. Unfortunately, we live in an era where exhibitionism is the norm so flaunt and flash has become a necessary part and parcel of the daily life of most people. In fact, flaunt and flash generate clicks and likes, which earns the pay check for many. Obviously, flaunt and flash, has become a career for many.

Society teaches that one must involve in interpersonal competitiveness to apprehend feats of major success and accomplishment in life. But modesty as a mark of self-transcendence will enhance your understanding to apprehend that it is foolishness to compare ourselves with others because it yields contentiousness and makes us divisive, covetous, prideful, and selfish.

Don’t get me wrong, competitiveness is necessary in sports. It is needed for marketing strategies in the capitalist world, and it is applicable in party politics. But, in our daily life, our competitiveness should not extend beyond the self. And even with competitiveness within self, your focus is to challenge yourself by setting personal goals and targets and putting in effort, making choices, and taking advantage of opportunities to realise those goals and targets.

When you extend your competitiveness from self to others, you lose yourself. No two people are the same; we all have unique charts and purposes of life so extending your competitiveness towards others, means you have abandoned your personal unique purpose to take up that of others. Your goal at this point, unfortunately, shall be aimed at striving to become the best version of another person not the best of your unique self. And that’s a lost cause because a brooding spirit of envy, bitterness, and covetousness is cultivated in you. Even worse, imagine encountering a situation where you fail to win that competition. You will be forced into cutting corners and extorting others to keep up with the Jones’. When you are consumed by the passions of competitiveness, you fail to yield modesty. Rather, you become covetous.

Covetousness is when you are envious of what another person has, and you want to have it for yourself. So instead of being happy for them, for what they have acquired, you selfishly try everything in your power to take it from them and if you fail in that subversion, you become hateful and spiteful towards them.

The biggest misconception is that we always consider thankfulness to be for the apprehension of only the one at the receiving end. But that is wrong. When you are blessed and enabled with the capability to be an agent of charitability, where do you place your gratitude? Do you place it on you for being the agent of charitability? When you have been blessed to offer help to another person, do you feel offended when they don’t give you praise and gratitude for your gesture? True depiction of thankfulness is the awareness and the fulfilment we apprehend when we come to understand that gratitude must rather be placed on the positive impactful change and solace that our charitability manifests in others.

So, if your hope for fulfilment is focused on the words of gratitude and praise that you receive for your charitability, then you will never apprehend true thankfulness. Therefore, since the manifestation of your charitable cause is dependent on the source of enablement, capability and motivation for altruism, gratitude must be apportioned towards that source. Your appreciation of the source for the availability of these incentives invokes awareness and apprehension of thankfulness. In other words, thankfulness is when you can tame your ego, supress self-praise and self-absorption, and be grateful for the enablement and capability that offered you the chance to be a vessel of charitability.

In our thankfulness, we must appreciate the gift of life and the existence of all organisms of nature and the source, the giver of that life. We must be grateful for nature and all its organisms that contribute to this holistic force. Think of bees and butterflies and how they cause pollination, and without pollination you cannot have your apples, pears, plums, and cherries. The little insects and worms in the ground may look nasty and disgusting to you but they are always busily decomposing organic matter to improve the fertility of the soil for crops, trees, and weeds to get their nutrients so they can grow and provide food, or if for nothing, at least supply humanity with oxygen to keep us alive.

Thankfulness is not manifested only in sufficiency. That’s a huge misconception too. It is not manifested only in favourable, pleasant, and comfortable seasons. In all things and always, continually, we must manifest thankfulness. Our appreciation of strength and endurance; our gratitude to the source of our perseverance in the mist of pain, despair, persecution, loss, failure, disaster, and trouble is the manifestation of thankfulness. Thankfulness is strength in itself. Thankfulness is healing. It fulfils hopes and assurances.

When we apprehend thankfulness, we yield blessedness and wellbeing, and we grow in grace and self-transcendence; thus, yielding in compassion, empathy, and charity. So, let’s be endowed with thankfulness. Every day, everywhere and in all things let’s walk in thankfulness, manifest thankfulness, inspire thankfulness.