Poetry | Life Lesson | Practicing Gratitude

Gratitude in a Sonnet

For those who need reminding

“My life-long dreams have all gone up in smoke. I wish I had been struck down in my prime. I don’t have a cent to my name; I’m broke. My life has been a complete waste of time.”

So, on he moaned and wailed to his daughter, since he had no one else in his vexed life. He’d spent his best years chasing investors, instead of being home in bed with his wife.

The young lass tried hard not to roll her eyes, she’d heard it all so many times before. “But Dad,” she said with her voice on the rise, “You have lots of things to be grateful for.”

She placed her twin babies in her dad’s lap. “Give them a cuddle while I have a nap.”

© Carolyn Hastings 2021

‘I don’t have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness — it’s right in front of me if I’m paying attention and practicing gratitude.’ — Brené Brown

‘Change your thoughts and you change your world’ — Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993)

It’s a sad and sorry fact that many of us spend way too much time complaining and not enough time being grateful for what we already have, and for all the things that are ‘right in front of (us)’ just by being alive and ‘paying attention’ to them.

The characters in my sonnet are completely fictional as are their circumstances and life choices. Any similarities are completely unintentional. In the same vein, I should state that being ungrateful is not limited to the males of our species. The scenario portrayed in my sonnet is just that, a scenario — one of many possible scenarios that apply to all of us regardless of gender.

That said, on the subject of gender differences in gratitude, I came across an interesting but unloved article here in Medium. While it lacked appropriate source citation (sorry, R. Rangan PhD, Michael Burg, MD, Patrick M. Ohana, ScienceDuuude, Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) and others with an evidence-based bent) and it was basically a promotion for their wellbeing app, the writers nevertheless left us with some valuable takeaways, like this one -

‘We suspect that men are probably just as grateful as women when they stop and think about it. The first step for some is the stopping, then the thinking. The issue seems to be that for some men despite being grateful, they struggle to express this. The reasons for this can be linked to societal and cultural stereotypes.’

My gratitude sonnet is the offshoot of some writing (and thinking) I’ve been doing over recent days. It began with a sonnet about hope which I wrote in response to Sahil Patel’s hope prompt. That lead to a series of three twittles which considered the relationship between despair, hope and gratitude as it relates to self. Both of these pieces were written in recognition of World Poetry Day (March 21) but also to acknowledge the great need we have in the world today for both hope and gratitude.

Here are the links to my hope poems –

I would be delighted if my poems inspired other writers to explore the topics, hope and gratitude, in whatever form of creative expression works best for them. In the meantime, may I express my heartfelt and grateful thanks to you for taking the time to read my words. 🙏 💕

Footnote — here is the Gratitube article about gender differences in gratitude: