Gratitude — Not Just the utterance of Thank You!!

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gratitude you tend to express by using those words. One way to counter this problem is to depend on the gesture rather than the words. As it’s always taught to us from the childhood “Actions speak Louder than Words”, it’s an apt philosophy to follow for mastering the given problem.<blockquote id="fa2a">Several routes open when it comes to Thank you gifts, but a rule of thumb that trumps others is — Always be thoughtful while choosing, the high materialistic value doesn’t make a good gift but something that is genuinely advantageous or something that suffices receivers yearning is the way to go while concurrently corresponding your sense of gratitude.</blockquote>Though, many people know this, rarely does everyone follow it. To make the person realize your appreciation of their act, the more thought and effort goes into it, the better. However, if the thought behind it contains malice or sense of reverting the favour then it’s called a Transaction, not appreciation.Recently, in Hungarian Grand Prix, 2020, Red Bull Racing’s star driver crashed his car while driving to the grid, minutes before the start of the race, generating almost insurmountable task for the engineers and crew members of repairing the car, a guaranteed retirement from the race before even starting the race. The crew started working in the car about 18 minutes before the start, but the determination and effort of the crew cruised them to finished repairs about with mere minutes to spare to the start of the race.Max Verstappen never lost faith in the situation and his ability despite making a rookie mistake, didn’t let frustration overpower him, held his ground and came through. The result — Max Verstappen secured a Podium finish(second position) from a near retirement from the race. It’s very important that one doesn’t demean oneself but count on his abilities.Stoic Philosopher Marcus Aurelius mentioned in Meditations “To receive from friends what are esteemed favours, without being humbled by them or letting them go unnoticed”The prime goal of all our efforts as human beings is to make sure our efforts don’t go in vain, even better, when they turn constructive and provided higher dividends than expected. Once the help is provided, it’s receivers responsibility to make the best of it. When the receiver

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constructs a consequential result exploiting the help provided, he makes the helper more proud & satisfied than anything else. Apart from gifting someone a tangible thing, the best gift is always to make their effort(s) substantiate and expand.Expanding on the results lays the groundwork for future acts of generosity, although it sounds cliche, on exploring, it’s a cliche for a reason. When an act of generosity by someone else takes you forward, you feel happy and powered. This feeling creates an urge in you to help someone else in need and simultaneously, the initiator notices the positive results produced from the help he provided, it motivates him to continue helping, thus forth, setting up a process that follows multiple folds.However, the process is never set in stone given that the motive plays a crucial role in the gesture of help. We can again refer back to Meditations for some guidance (Book 5) —“One man, when he has done a service to another, is ready to set it down to his account as a favour conferred. Another is not ready to do this, but still, in his own mind he thinks the man as his debtor, and he knows what he has done. A third in a manner does not even know what he has done, but he is like a vine which has produced grapes and seeks for nothing more after it has produced its proper fruit. As a horse when he has run, a dog when he tracked the game, a bee when it has made honey, so a man when he has done a good act, does not call out for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in season.”A good deed carried out, while logging entry in the excel of good deeds and submitted during a performance review, can’t really be coined as a good deed but a mere Transaction.In all, when we really have to Thank someone, there is more than one way of expressing yourself, the ripple effect that follows is even more powerful as it moves forward the message in the bottle, embodying the act of goodwill, through the unlimited ocean.‘The doer of good deeds, here and hereafter; he delights in both the worlds. The thought, “ Good have I done”, delights him and he delights even more when he goes to the realms of bliss.’- The Dhammapada (Chapter 1, excerpt 18)</article></body>

Gratitude — Not just the Utterance of Thank You!!

A herd of words in different languages suffer the same fate of becoming inconsequential and depreciated in their meaning due to over-usage. One common word in almost all the languages is the word for expressing gratitude towards a person in turn for an act of their generosity and helpfulness.

Every waking hour, our unconscious mind prompts us to say Thank You, to the extent that it has become involuntary, futile, hollow and many times inappropriate.

The over-usage of the words has flooded our day to day social practice. Sometimes, thank you is also used as a period after a sentence, to mark the end of a conversation, to be fake nice to someone, or, the worst one, when we do not appreciate someone’s gesture of help and use it in a schmuck manner to get rid of them. These applications have led to the demise of the authentic meaning it used to convey and a betrayal to the feelings it used to express. That has given rise to another complexity of how to genuinely Thank someone for a gesture you appreciate and convey your deepest gratitude without sounding phoney.

When stuck while performing a task at hand, say, covering two holes with your two hands on the floor of a fishing boat, 1 foot apart, and still, the water keeps rising, seeping in from the third hole, relatively 10 feet from the first two holes on the other corner of the boat, common sense dictates, this dire problem requires outside help for saving the concerned life. When we find ourselves in need of help, in time of desperation, we seek out help after figuring the incapacity of our ability to sought out the situation. To the external force that provides the life-saving act of help to carry us forward, we recite the words “Thank You”.

In hindsight, one can never be sure if the person you’re thanking perceives the impact he has made by his act of generosity towards solving your problem or the depth of gratitude you tend to express by using those words. One way to counter this problem is to depend on the gesture rather than the words. As it’s always taught to us from the childhood “Actions speak Louder than Words”, it’s an apt philosophy to follow for mastering the given problem.

Several routes open when it comes to Thank you gifts, but a rule of thumb that trumps others is — Always be thoughtful while choosing, the high materialistic value doesn’t make a good gift but something that is genuinely advantageous or something that suffices receivers yearning is the way to go while concurrently corresponding your sense of gratitude.

Though, many people know this, rarely does everyone follow it. To make the person realize your appreciation of their act, the more thought and effort goes into it, the better. However, if the thought behind it contains malice or sense of reverting the favour then it’s called a Transaction, not appreciation.

Recently, in Hungarian Grand Prix, 2020, Red Bull Racing’s star driver crashed his car while driving to the grid, minutes before the start of the race, generating almost insurmountable task for the engineers and crew members of repairing the car, a guaranteed retirement from the race before even starting the race. The crew started working in the car about 18 minutes before the start, but the determination and effort of the crew cruised them to finished repairs about with mere minutes to spare to the start of the race.

Max Verstappen never lost faith in the situation and his ability despite making a rookie mistake, didn’t let frustration overpower him, held his ground and came through. The result — Max Verstappen secured a Podium finish(second position) from a near retirement from the race. It’s very important that one doesn’t demean oneself but count on his abilities.

Stoic Philosopher Marcus Aurelius mentioned in Meditations “To receive from friends what are esteemed favours, without being humbled by them or letting them go unnoticed”

The prime goal of all our efforts as human beings is to make sure our efforts don’t go in vain, even better, when they turn constructive and provided higher dividends than expected. Once the help is provided, it’s receivers responsibility to make the best of it. When the receiver constructs a consequential result exploiting the help provided, he makes the helper more proud & satisfied than anything else. Apart from gifting someone a tangible thing, the best gift is always to make their effort(s) substantiate and expand.

Expanding on the results lays the groundwork for future acts of generosity, although it sounds cliche, on exploring, it’s a cliche for a reason. When an act of generosity by someone else takes you forward, you feel happy and powered. This feeling creates an urge in you to help someone else in need and simultaneously, the initiator notices the positive results produced from the help he provided, it motivates him to continue helping, thus forth, setting up a process that follows multiple folds.

However, the process is never set in stone given that the motive plays a crucial role in the gesture of help. We can again refer back to Meditations for some guidance (Book 5) —

“One man, when he has done a service to another, is ready to set it down to his account as a favour conferred. Another is not ready to do this, but still, in his own mind he thinks the man as his debtor, and he knows what he has done. A third in a manner does not even know what he has done, but he is like a vine which has produced grapes and seeks for nothing more after it has produced its proper fruit. As a horse when he has run, a dog when he tracked the game, a bee when it has made honey, so a man when he has done a good act, does not call out for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in season.”

A good deed carried out, while logging entry in the excel of good deeds and submitted during a performance review, can’t really be coined as a good deed but a mere Transaction.

In all, when we really have to Thank someone, there is more than one way of expressing yourself, the ripple effect that follows is even more powerful as it moves forward the message in the bottle, embodying the act of goodwill, through the unlimited ocean.

‘The doer of good deeds, here and hereafter; he delights in both the worlds. The thought, “ Good have I done”, delights him and he delights even more when he goes to the realms of bliss.’

- The Dhammapada (Chapter 1, excerpt 18)