Today, I’m going to talk about the emotion of gratitude. I think that nature’s extensiveness and frugality give us gratitude.
Cold day’s frugal meal
As I mentioned in the previous article, I had a freezing and snowy day a few days ago. The heavy snow was surprising for me because I live in a snow-free place. I felt a little chilly even though I was dressed warmly. I usually don’t use any heater but a small electric heated blanket. So the hot dinner soup warmed me a lot.
At that time, I experienced an impressive emotion: deep gratitude. I felt deep gratitude for the dinner because I was able to eat such a hot soup on a cold night. So I noticed that that emotion filled me deeply.
But at the same time, I noticed my strange mental work. I didn’t succeed or accomplish my goal at all, but I felt deep gratitude.
I can say that I lost my good circumstances. It was a very cold day, so I can say that I lost my comfortable room temperature. In addition, because of the snow, I was not able to go out to buy food. Even though the dinner soup was tasty, it was far from special; it was a frugal meal. I used only cheap fishcakes and some stored or dried vegetables.
Generally speaking, if we lose value, we will be depressed. But at that time, I felt deep gratitude for a hot meal. I prayed and gave thanks for the situation before the meal.
I think this is the nature of gratitude. Circumstances give us gratitude. Neither success nor accomplishment. In other words, I believe that nature’s extensiveness and frugality give us gratitude.
The nature of gratitude
I think there are two elements to having gratitude.
- The feeling of belonging to an extensive nature
- Frugal but with enough resources to live well
Example of countryside life
To explain that, let’s imagine this situation: We live in a remote country house. There aren’t many houses nearby. So we are far from human society. There is extensive nature around us. We are alone or with a few reliable families.
In such a situation, we can do almost nothing against nature. Because our human lives are far smaller than nature’s power. So we have no choice but to obey nature. Although we cannot live without nature, we cannot know nature’s wishes or thoughts. When we look at this situation from nature’s perspective, nature can easily kill or beat us as much as it wants.
But we can have hot soup for dinner. It’s a simple meal, but it’s enough to fill us up. And it’s a small house, but a safe and comfortable place. These materials are part of nature. In other words, we can live by borrowing and using many materials from nature.
Feeling gratitude
At such a time, we would feel gratitude. Because we can be filled, even though we are in a hard situation where we would easily die. The more we feel how small our lives are, the more humble we become. And nature is the largest and strongest thing in the world.
I think that we cannot have gratitude when we have social stress. Because society is made up of human relations. We can change other humans. That makes us feel like, “If we can change others, we can get more.” In other words, we lose humility. And it prevents us from feeling “unchangeable nature’s extensiveness.”
I also think that frugality has the same meaning. In my definition, “frugality” means “minimizing waste to live well.” However, if we have social stress, we often compare ourselves to others. That creates vanity. And that keeps gratitude away from us.
They felt gratitude, so they prayed
I think that people living on the frontier in the past often felt such gratitude. Because they have no help from society or scientific support like we have today.
Perhaps they prayed before dinner every night. Because they felt deep gratitude every day. Neither because of enforcement nor a habit. They wanted to pray, so they did.
I believe this is one of the values. Once I lived in several big cities, I rarely felt such gratitude. But in recent days, I’ve noticed that I feel such an emotion every day because I have distanced myself from social stress and live with frugality. Perhaps cold and snowy day made me notice it clearly. The weather gave me a sense of nature’s extensiveness.
Of course, comparing oneself to others is one way to live, especially for those who live in society. I believe that that is the most major way. But now, I’ve realized that I prefer peaceful emotions. So I value such a peaceful and frugal way of life. I also think this is one way of living.
Conclusion
So I think that nature’s extensiveness and frugality give us gratitude. I think that this is one of the ways to live.
If we understand this logic, we might be able to live well with deep gratitude.
Thank you for reading. See you in the next article.
