Have you ever looked at the flip side of the coin that you hold? Most of the time, we only look at one side and take the other side for granted. Taking things for granted is an attitude we develop consciously or unconsciously, and there are possible dangers involved in this attitude. We know from real life that we cannot take everybody for granted every time, nor take others for a ride. We need to look at the flip side of our life and that of others. We need to develop an attitude of gratitude in our lives.
I want to share one of my past experiences that opened my inner eyes and gave me some insight into developing an attitude of gratitude. A tropical storm hit a couple of years ago in northern Georgia, affecting about a million customers, depriving them of power. I was also affected by this power outage. It kept me in darkness for almost three days. I could not prepare food as I had an electric stove, nor could I work on my computer. There was no heating or cooling, and these days were hard. Damage to the power supply system caused this power outage. Electricity is one of human inventions, and the supply system results from human labor. The system’s failure caused me and others stress and inconvenience for several days.
This experience helped me realize my dependence on electricity and several other human-made products in this modern world. It made me think, what if I wake up one day with no free oxygen to breathe anymore? As we know, the oxygen we breathe is freely available in nature and is a gratuitous gift from God, which is neither a human invention nor a product of human labor. If there is no oxygen, how will I deal with it? What will be the level of my stress and that of my fellow human beings around me? I cannot even imagine!!! I suppose humanity may go crazy, and we may all fall dead one by one, and this world would become a single cemetery where there is no one to care for or clear the dead, not even to bury or cremate them! What a sad state of a situation to imagine!
What if the Sun decides to take a day off? How will it be??? How will you and I deal with it? Unimaginable, I suppose! Then, the whole planet called Earth will be a frozen ball! I can only pray that the Sun does not take time off! What if God dies, as the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche predicted? (Although it is a logical impossibility.) All the order He has put in place will no longer be good, and there will be disorder and chaos in the entire world at all levels of human existence. What will we do then? I have no answer, and my only prayer is that we don’t reach that situation at all! When God is dead, there is no one to hear my prayer, and there is no reason to pray either. These can be my childish and probable imaginations and illusions. However, these are not absolute impossibilities in the future either. We just don’t know. Maybe or maybe not; someday or one day, or never a day! Our wish and prayers are that we don’t reach this situation in life.
These crazy thoughts can help us to look at the other side of our lives, even the other side of the globe, where the realities of life differ from where we live today. An attitude of gratitude is an essential element of human life. It is an attitude that springs up from our hearts when we realize the positive impact and influence of others in our daily lives. Our attitude of gratitude, first and foremost, should go to God, our families, our nation, others, and ourselves. Let us be men and women who foster an attitude of gratitude and make our life an act of gratitude!
You and Your Attitude! (Fr. T J. Puliyan, MSFS)
