Gratitude has become vogue in therapeutic parlance. Teamed with mindfulness it’s seen as a key path to mental health, and rightly so. So many thoughts can sabotage our spirits and drag us into darkness. Others, especially when the help us have perspective on our own minds and lives, lift us above that sea of turmoil. Thankfulness is one of those.
I was once on my way home from a shitty job on a pretty cool movie, dog tired, disappointed and feeling down after my assistant had blown up my beloved little Colt Vista. I was pining for a new car, and feeling so deprived and sad that my life was unfolding so meagerly with material success so evading me. Stopped at a light, feeling oh so sorry for myself, I saw a group of young men pushing a beat up old Honda civic down a side street, not like they were trying to jump start it or get it out of the road, but more like they were the car’s motor, just trucking along happily. They were laughing and shouting, goofing with each other, taking turns to occasionally fall back with some slick dance moves.
I felt utterly humiliated for my indulgent self pity. The old pickup I had managed to buy over the weekend to replace my Vista was running okay, I was on my way home to my wife and kids who I loved who were waiting for me in a spectacular and bespoke home I had built to match the character of my family. We were all healthy, I was actually getting a kick out of the work on the goofy film I was on (at least when I could get out of my head which kept ruminating over my relative poverty of the moment) and I clearly had so much more than those Civic guys, yet they were exuberant and joyful while I was sad and miserable.
Those boys shamed me right out of that dark cloud and into a mantra of gratitude that delivered me, by the time I got home, full of joy into the arms of my beloved wife and daughter. They had no idea the gift that little troupe of happy car-pushing apes had given them.
Please, be grateful! Happy Gratitude and…
HOLLY DAYS 