The Choices of Gratitude and Hope

We develop gratitude by paying attention. We make a point to review a day or a lifetime to identify all for which we can be grateful. In fact, with practice we can identify thankworthy things in the middle of sad or stressful situations. It’s almost as if gratitude were its own radio frequency. When we learn to pick up that frequency, we perceive things that we couldn’t perceive before. Circumstances that we thought were simply good or bad become more complex to our thinking. We look more deeply into people and events, seeing a whole range of intentions and desires, with a long spectrum between simply good and simply evil.

A habitual response of gratitude requires a certain level of maturity. Because I see the complexity of a person, I cannot paint her as the enemy or as a bad person. The gaze of gratitude sees the person as someone who continues to evolve, someone who may do “bad” things but for reasons that are rooted in the desire for good things. The gaze of gratitude looks at a situation and sees its many facets—or at least sees the possibility of many facets—and so remains open to something loving or wise coming out of that situation.

Hope is yet another spiritual frequency, a way of perceiving life as something unfolding and full of good potential. Hope sees possibility rather than a dead end. Hope dreams of growing options rather than multiple limits. In a similar way to how gratitude looks for reasons to be grateful, hope looks for reasons to believe that “all shall be well,” as Julian of Norwich famously wrote.

I suspect that gratitude makes a way for hope. Because gratitude reviews the past in terms of the good, it prepares us to approach the future in the same way.

Gratitude and hope are both choices. Let’s think about that.

I choose to look for reasons to be thankful. In fact, I have to choose, because the world around me is addicted to doom and vengeance. I must have a talk with myself and decide if I’m willing to use that gratitude frequency; it will take some time and effort on my part.

Just before beginning a battle that looked hopeless in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Legolas apologizes to Aragorn, saying, “I was wrong to despair.” I hold on to that line, because it reminds me that I can choose hope or I can choose to give up—I can choose despair. I can set my mind upon hope or despair, just as I can set my mind upon gratitude or resentment.

Gratitude and hope work hand in hand. Gratitude remembers the past in such a way to encourage hope, and hope imagines a future in which gratitude will thrive.