Mastering the Gratitude Attitude

It starts with getting rid of the entitlement attitude, which puts one's "rights" ahead of everything else.

This is something that I have had to struggle with since losing my darling husband. I was never spoiled, in fact, just the opposite, I came from a lower, middle class family and we were lucky to have whatever we had. My parents, tho my mom is brilliant, had no formal education.  My father worked hard as a laborer or shop steward in construction and didn't work over the winter months most years.  I remember the days when I, as a young girl in grammar school, stood up on a chair in front of the refrigerator to check my mom's change purse, and there was never anything in it except pennies. Once there was a dollar in it and some change, I took the dollar, went to the store and bought an ice cream cone and some gum. My mom happened to drive by the moment I walked out and saw me with the ice cream cone (which I immediately dropped to the ground) and wondered where I got the money! yikes! I told her I found a quarter on the ground, which was beleivable because in those days we walked everywhere, to school, to the store, to the beach, it didn't matter how far, we walked, 1, 5 10 miles...and there was always money on the ground. I will never forget that day. Some time later during the evening my mother realized her dollar was missing. What a beating I received when she pulled me out of bed and, after first accusing and beating my brother, realized that I was the culprit.

I was never spoiled, have worked hard all of my life, and always understood that we work for what we want. My work ethic and learning to extend myself in service to others started at a very young age. We were poor and I first started by helping an elderly neighbor by going down into the basement to fill oil jugs for her furnance. She gave me fifty cents every week for this. I also started at this age to baby sit. When I baby sat I also voluntarily -- cleaned the house too, as it was always messy. This I did for strangers of my own volition, seeing that things needed to be done and I was there and able to help out. (I have always pitched in to help in all of my friends homes to this day.) This I did too - the babysitting and the house cleaning, for fifty cents. I did not grow up spoiled nor have I ever had the notion that I was every 'entitled' to anything if didn't earn it. Not only that, but as indicated here, it is obvious, that I wasn't a taker, but a giver. To love is to give.

However, since the tragic death of my husband I have been confronted with difficult feelings and questions. For five years I have been angry and resentful with my husband for getting killed and then with "God" for taking him home.  Angry with everyone else who was alive and living their blessed lives while I felt unblessed. That pain, confusion, misunderstanding and anger brought me to a place where I appreciated very little of anyone or anything, including my own life, I really wanted not to live at all; I just wanted to die.

I no longer wanted to pray. After all, how can you go to God when "God" has punished you so severely by taking your husband back to himself, therefore 'destroying' your life? In spite of the fact that I knew, was aware too, that if God took Avi home, that he had accomplished what he needed to fulfill here on earth and it was a good thing -- I also was aware that if I was still here that meant that I needed to perhaps move on, start new, and give new meaning to life, give to another, love someone else, add to another, because what are we if not love? And to love, is to give. 

In spite of that knowledge I am still struggling and have not moved on but remained without Gratitude for having had him at all, gratitude for the gift of life, for the friendships all of my life, for the love and respect I receive, the support from so many, and the talents, gifts and abilities, the health, the beauty, intelligence, the very breath I breathe.  It is with these thoughts that I share this teaching. This is my struggle, which is very different than the common, everyday, spoiled, entitled, 'you owe me' materialistic, attitude, yet it is a part and parcel of this attitude, nevertheless.

What in life do you feel is coming to you? Health? A good job? Children? A peaceful retirement? Check yourself out.

If you're like me, you probably have a whole list of things you feel entitled to, and if you don't get them, you feel cheated. If you are unable to take a vacation or buy the home you've dreamed of, then life has robbed you of something you are entitled to!

We live in a society that feeds an entitlement attitude. Compare the Bill of Rights, which focuses on our entitlements, to the Torah, which focuses on our responsibilities and obligations.

LIFE OWES US NOTHING

The entitlement attitude says, "life owes me something," or "people owe me something," or "God owes me something."

You know if you're into entitlement because the result leaves you constantly feeling angry, resentful, or frustrated. If you believe that someone owes you something and that person doesn't come through, you feel angry. You feel you've been ripped-off and cheated out of what I rightly deserve.

But entitlement is a lie. It's a perversion of reality.

There is nothing in the universe that states, "Dov Heller deserves to live a long, happy, and successful life!" My feelings of entitlement are born from within my own mind. Objectively speaking, there is no basis for such claims.

Everything good we do get must be looked at as a gift.

Even though Judaism maintains that God created us for pleasure and wants us to have pleasure, we still should not feel entitled to getting what we desire. This is because everything good we do get must be looked at as a gift. Understanding this creates an awareness that the source of all our good is God.

This understanding that everything is a gift forms the basis of our relationship with God. Judaism also looks at the bad as coming from God and it should ultimately be viewed as a gift. However a discussion of this complex issue is beyond the limits of this article.

Neither God, nor anyone else for that matter, owes us anything. Do you believe this is true? Most people do not.

THE ENTITLEMENT ATTITUDE

There are many things we feel entitled to. For example, aren't we entitled to have people treat us fairly, with sensitivity, with respect? Where is that written? The truth is that any kindness we receive from others is always a gift.

What about marriage? This is an area of life which is full of expectation. What do you think your spouse owes you? Financial support? Emotional support? Is he or she the one who is supposed to make you happy for the rest of your life?

Your spouse owes you nothing! Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler emphasized this point in his Strive for Truth when he said, "When demands begin, love departs." If we would focus on our responsibilities to our spouses and what we can do to make them happy, our marriages would be much more fulfilling. Focus on what you are not getting that you feel entitled to and your marriage will be painful.

A distinction must be made between the illegitimacy of "entitlement" in an absolute sense and our legitimate claim to seek "justice" and the fulfillment of one's rights under society's laws or under a body of religious laws. For example, when a person isn't paid for his work, he is "entitled" by society's laws to sue for his wages. A wife who is being treated disrespectfully by her husband is "entitled" by Torah law to be given respect.

But in an absolute sense, a person is not entitled to be paid or to be given respect because there is nothing in the universe that guarantees any kind of individual rights.

THE GRATITUDE ATTITUDE

Eliminating entitlement from your life and embracing gratitude is spiritually and psychologically liberating.

Gratitude is the recognition that life owes me nothing and all the good I have is a gift. My eyes are a gift. So is my wife, my clothes, my job and my every breath. This is a major shift from the entitlement mode. Recognizing that everything good in life is ultimately a gift is a fundamental truth of reality.

Gratitude is the recognition that life owes me nothing and all the good I have is a gift.

To speak of seeing everything good we have as a gift leads us to confront the reality of a giver and the source of all this good: God.

Gratitude is where we begin to experience God in a powerfully personal way. "Thank you" is the simplest and one of the most powerful prayers a person can say. If you can say, "Thank you," you can connect with God and begin to develop a personal relationship with Him.

A powerful, although tragic, example of someone who mastered the gratitude attitude was a great Jewish woman named Bruria. The story of Bruria is told in the Talmud. Bruria and her husband, Rabbi Meir, had two sons who both died one Friday afternoon before Shabbat. Bruria decided not to tell her husband of the tragedy until after Shabbat since, according to Jewish law, one is not permitted to have a funeral on Shabbat or to openly mourn. There was nothing they could do until after Shabbat so she kept the information to herself and allowed her husband to enjoy the day (imagine being able to do that!). Explaining where the boys were was the least of her challenges.

When Shabbat was over this is how Bruria broke the horrible news to her husband. She asked him a legal question: What is the proper course of action if one person borrows two jewels from another and then the original owner requests that the return of the jewels. He replied with the obvious answer that one is obligated to return the loan upon demand. She then took her husband to where their two dead sons lay and said, "God has requested that we return the loan of our two jewels."

Bruria teaches us a potentially life transforming lesson here: Everything we have is on loan!

ON LOAN

My ears are on loan, my health is on loan, my children are on loan. Everything is a loan that is given as a gift.

What have we done that we could claim we earned life, health, financial success, or children? We have done nothing. As I mentioned earlier, when we internalize this truth, we become spiritually and psychologically liberated.

How freeing to live with a sense that everything good is on loan.

This is the key to internalizing the gratitude attitude. Once we understand that everything is a gift, we can begin to feel gratitude towards God, the source of all good, and grow closer to Him in an authentic and joyful way.

Can I forgive God?

 

What shall I forgive you for my Lord?

Would it be the revelations that inhabit my soul?

Or the wisdom of your life in me,

Shall it be the fruit of my friendships and the love I receive?

Or the beautiful husband you gave to me?

 

Shall I be angry that you gave and then took him back?

But then, you didn't need to give at all, I forgot about that.

Yep there's been some pain in between

But I know that You've never abandoned me.

 

Shall it be the beautiful talents that are a gift to me

Or the realization of dreams yet to be

Would it be the utterance of eloquent speech or deed;

Or the spirit of truth in a soul that is free?

 

Would I trade the tears of my soul song's pleas to thee?

Or the times that Your love filled my heart with glee?

The times the Divine was revealed in me

To those who sought light in a world that can't see?

 

When I think of my talents, gifts, abilities

When I think of Your Spirit and breath in me

How can I say that my spirit ain't free?

Perhaps it's illusion, or my own delusion

Error in judgment, mistaken reality.

 

When I think about choices to emulate You.

 I see the work of my heart and transfomations that prove.

Can I say I've been cheated in all honesty?

Or is that a flaw in my integrity?

My God -- I see the power that's vested in me,
'Its an awesome gift to handle responsibly.

 

7-22-2008 by©yaffa
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