# 50 - What Is the True Significance of Gratitude?
Episode 50
Hello there my friend.
This is Rick Lewis, still inside of my blanket covered shower stall for the 50th time, recording a daily episode of the Follow Through Formula Podcast.
It’s Nov 26 in the year 2020 on Thanksgiving day. Which is why my attention has turned today to the subject of gratitude – what it actually is, where it comes from, and how it relates to the theme of following through.
Following through implies that we’re going somewhere. That we’re starting from where we are and we’re getting to an ultimate or desired destination.
It’s an exciting and compelling idea that we are on a life path, that we are going somewhere, that we are being led to a meaningful destiny.
But how does all this relate to the concept of gratitude?
What does this phrase, “life on the path," mean?
We might say that “the path” is the terrain we navigate to reach the human spirit. And yet, the human spirit is always with us, inherently available, so what does it mean to travel the “path” if we’ve already arrived at the destination?
While it’s true that every human being is already whole and complete, it’s not necessarily true that we know it. Even if we do come to know it, there is the daunting task of living it, which requires remembering our wholeness day-to-day and moment-to-moment. If we are living our wholeness, our already-there-ness, then we no longer need to defend our selves, to justify our existence, grasp for love, desperately seek attention, protect the territory of our identity, or try to be someone we’re not.
But remembering our inherent goodness this way is perhaps the greatest challenge of human life. As if it were not challenging enough, many of us experience the environment of modern-day life as a conspiracy to ensure that we forget the fact of our enough-ness and perfection, rather than remember it. This forgetfulness makes us good consumers because it primes us for the attempt to purchase what is innately already ours; well-being. Well-being of course cannot be bought, but only realized. To realize is the simple act of recognizing what is so. This ostensibly simple realization process, however, can be a long journey, because we have strayed far from our natural state.
Being is our birthright, and we are never without it, yet if we observe the patterns of our thoughts and behavior we come to see that we are asleep to our possession of it. We think and act as though this fullness is somewhere other than here and who we already are. The “path” is actually just a journey to come back to ourselves, consciously, and then to stay where we are, to be fully present with what we’ve had all along.
A useful question then may be this: “By what means have we been led away from this original sacred spot which is our very selves?”
This is the point at which we must consider attention, for attention is a dangling leash around the neck of the human soul. If the leash is left unguarded, anyone can pick up the end and lead the innocence of unconditioned being anywhere they wish. The destination to which a soul is led matters less than the leading away itself.
Take for example the father who is a doctor and fully expects his child to step into the family practice. The father is passionately focused on this expectation and wastes no opportunity to express his pleasure and pride when the child shows interest and aptitude for this destiny and disappointment and judgment when the child displays interest in other pursuits. The message to the child is clear; when you arrive at the destination of doctor in the family practice you will be finally fully loved, approved and embraced. Until that time, you are incomplete.
This is all unconscious on the part of the father of course, who was himself likely met with a similar expectation to be something other than himself and to orient his life to future achievements rather than the sufficiency of his self.
It is a fundamental misdeed as a parent to pull on the leash of a child’s attention in a way that creates separation from their Self. This separation is an illusion, yet if there is forgetfulness, that is, an exclusive identification with the destination of the pull, the illusion appears to be reality. That exclusive identification is accomplished with the frequent reinforcement of a parent’s emotional investment in a conditional future for their child.
We are splendid, powerful and spectacular beings who have this leash lying about. The leash of attention makes us vulnerable to being distanced from ourselves by others, by the narratives of our environment, by the stories of our culture. If those in charge can convince us that we need to be somewhere other than here—someone other than who we are, we become a kind of puppet under their influence; convinced that we are lost and that someone other than us knows how to get back to wholeness.
The pull on the leash takes innumerable forms. We might be led away from this moment by the command to improve ourselves. “Things will be alright as soon as you’re a little smarter, more talented, more entertaining, tougher, prettier.” Our we might get wrapped up in family perspectives. “Everything will be good as soon as the Vikings win a superbowl, as soon as the right president is elected, as soon we’ve earned enough money, as soon as the neighbors accept us” and it goes on and on and on.
Slowly we are trained to give our attention away to a thousand different things. Our parents, our teachers, our peers, our nation—we are like their dog and we allow them to pull our attention around wherever they wish to lead us. This may seem a strange idea, that we are like dogs on a leash lacking individual volition and control over our attention, being led by the hand of other interests and authorities away from ourselves. And yet, it gets stranger still. Before we graduate from grade school the end of the leash to which we are attached is handed back to us. That’s right. Our attention is no longer led away by others. Instead, we do it ourselves.
Now we must speak of habits, which are the children of attention. When attention has been given repeated and consistent exposure to the same destinations of thought, deed, attitude and perspective it establishes a physiological pattern in the cells, sinews and bone that house our being. Those patterns are called habits. Our habits then do the job of carrying our attention far away from our Self, even though we are now in possession of our own attention leash.
It is at this point that we are most bewildered. We seem to have autonomy, but we experience life as a continuous compulsion to move toward destinations that seem random and empty, yet somehow urgent. We don’t know how these pursuits came to be important. We feel fragmented and scattered, never at rest, always seeking, moving toward vague futures that never seem to arrive.
Our being is still intact, fully alive, yet exhausted and disoriented, unable to rest long enough to collect itself. Never having been given the knowledge of attention management it remains baffled by the spell of separation that it is now casting over itself. Like this, our attention is stolen for a lifetime, unless we are trained to intervene on our own behalf.
“What does this training consist of?” you may be asking. “Surely, it’s a long and arduous path, a grueling climb out of the pit of perpetual distraction?”
Well no actually. The spell of stolen attention is broken by just a single moment…of gratitude. Gratitude is the unique act of bringing oneself back to the present moment through the act of praising what is already so.
Any time we stop and look around at what we have and praise its presence in our lives, we are reconnecting with who we are, in this moment, and with the power of gratitude.
We might remember…
I have a home, or I have a family. I have the ability to sit quietly for a moment and sense the feeling of my feet on the floor. I have a floor. I have ground. I am able to sleep when I am tired. There is food available to me. I have clothes. I have water to drink. I have friends. My heart keeps pumping and my breath keeps cycling without me having to draw up a schedule or make monthly payments. My human body is a gift. And perhaps most of all, I have the opportunity to direct my attention to nourishing thoughts, images, memories and future intentions. I am grateful that the opportunity to direct my own attention grants me the ability to create my life. For this I am most thankful.
Thank you for listening to today’s podcast. Your attention is a gift.
This is episode 50 of the FTF Podcast.
I’m Rick Lewis.
And I’ll be grateful tomorrow.