As we prepared for another lockdown (the country's third), the emotional long-haul of the pandemic was taking its toll on me. Between bouts of burnout and a sense of stagnation, I felt sapped of energy and life. Psychologists have named this 'feeling' as languishing.
More than a year later, as the pandemic drags on with no end in sight, I knew it was more than a blah 'feeling' - it was (and still is, on some days) anguish and grief over the loss of life and normalcy.
A line from one of the most heartbreaking yet enlightening books I have had the pleasure of reading came to mind... "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedom - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way." (Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning)
The realisation sunk deep and it was how The Gratitude Project came to be - to choose hope amidst despair, to see beauty within ashes, to be grateful when it is painful. That same night, I wrote The Gratitude Manifesto in my journal and have since referred to it daily when I reflect and take in the day.
..........
- Gratitude is perspective. It is not the absence of pain, but a choice to see the good in spite of it.
- Gratitude is grace. It does not diminish nor discriminate. It is not a new-age positivity theory or a glass half empty/full concept. It acknowledges that today (and sometimes, for a little while) might be bad, but it does not and would not stay bad forever.
- Gratitude is universal. It celebrates the big and the small with equal joy + wonder.
- Gratitude is intentional. You have to make time to notice its presence. You have to breathe it in and write it out.
- Gratitude is hopeful. It sees the now and knows full well that the future is better and brighter than we can imagine it to be.
- Gratitude is for us. For you. For me. For our souls. When we learn to be grateful, we can overcome anything in this world.
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