Is Gratitude The Right Attitude?

By Bernie Siegel, M.D.

How can you ask me to be grateful when our lives are filled with pain, disease, loss, suffering and more. Was Job treated fairly? Should he have been grateful for what our Creator did to him? Why deny how difficult life is by putting on a smile and saying you’re fine? Denying your pain hurts you and other wounded people who need your help. I never say, “Good Morning.” I just say, “Morning” when greeted by people, as I start my day. I don’t deny my difficulties but I also know something about the nature of life that helps me to survive.

Am I trying to be witty and get you to smile? No, but I do want you to think about what you read in the paper each day and then tell me why you should be grateful. Think about it. When John Kennedy died in a plane crash an article appeared in our local paper about The Kennedy Curse. I wrote to the paper listing all the people who have died in our family of the same causes, except for assassinations, and so it is not a Kennedy Curse but a common curse on all those who are experiencing life. So back to my question,. Why be grateful?

People win the lottery and, 95% when interviewed five years later, tell you it ruined their lives. People don’t know what to do with life. So why be grateful? We are informed and not educated. I don’t want to become strong at the broken places. I don’t want to have a disaster and then say it was a gift and write a book to enlighten others. I want to be educated about life’s difficulties by my parents, teachers and religion so that I can become strong enough to not break under life’s pressures.

I will not go on just to fill the page but stop here to tell you what you, Job and I should be grateful for. The chance to show and experience compassion when difficulties do occur. Our uncertain world and free will make the expression of love and compassion meaningful. When in the midst of my suffering I am cared for and about by a fellow human being, or even one of our pets, I feel grateful. They sustain me and give me the strength to survive and go on living. As a young man with AIDS said, “What is evil is not the disease, but to not respond with compassion to the person with the disease.”

Yes, I am grateful for the chance to experience life as painful as it may be. I have learned to expect the pain and continue to love in the face of it. With love we can survive and be grateful for the meaningful compassion and love that sustains and heals us. When God created all living things we are told God saw that it was good. That statement does not follow the creation of man. However, that is an improper translation. It should say, complete, not good. So man is not complete and, therefore, his/her compassion and love becomes meaningful. When I am wounded or in need and a fellow sufferer helps me, I am profoundly grateful. I expect this of my pets, so it is not as meaningful as from a fellow human being, who has free will and is incomplete.

When I go out I carry pins that say, ‘You Make A Difference.” When someone performs an act of kindness that I am a witness to, or recipient of, I give them one of the pins and thank them. I am grateful.

Last but not least I am grateful for at least one more thing. As the gospel song tells us, “Saint or sinners call will always find him there, and though it makes Him sad to see the way we live, He’ll always say, I forgive.” I am grateful for being forgiven and the opportunity to say, “I am sorry” when I have hurt other living things and to be understood and forgiven by them.

In this way I receive an opportunity to be reborn and I have experienced many beginnings in my lifetime. As God said to me on one of my visits to Heaven as an outside consultant for The Board of Directors, “When you graduate from school you call it a commencement, not a termination, and the Bible ends in Revelations not conclusions. So life is a series of beginnings.”

I will close by sharing the words of the three plaques over God’s desk. If you want further information read my latest epistle, Prescriptions For Living.

1. Don’t feel totally, irrevocably, eternally responsible for everything. That’s my job.
2. Everything you remember I forget, and everything you forget I remember.
3. If you go around saying I’ve got a miserable life, I’ll show you what miserable really is, and if you go around saying I have a wonderful life, I’ll show you what wonderful really is.

So be grateful. Somebody bigger than you and I is watching.

Dr. Bernie Siegel is a well-known proponent of alternative approaches to healing. Since his retirement from general and pediatric surgical practice in 1989, he has dedicated himself to humanizing the medical establishment’s approach to patients and empowering individuals to play a greater role in the healing process. He is the author of several books, including Love, Medicine and Miracles; Peace, Love and Healing; and his newest, 365 Prescriptions for the Soul: Daily Words for Healing Mind, Body, and Spirit. www.ecap-online.org.