Living with Gratitude vs Living with Bitterness

The bits and pieces I have put together are from my own experiences and the experiences of others who have similar interests in these matters. I have also drawn thoughts from reading what experts have to say about these matters and, over the weekend, tried to collate all this into a short article to share with you. Hope this will spark ideas in you and encourage you to share them as comments for me to further learn from and expand my understanding of human behaviour.

Humans are complex living beings. The human brain, heart and something called the "mind" have complex interconnections. Medical science, computing, and philosophers have continued to understand these complex interconnections and made good progress.

My collection of thoughts is not about explaining the above but a Point of View on 2 significant emotions we grapple with almost daily → Gratefulness and Bitterness.

Before we delve into these 2, let us introspect into our own experiences of happiness, sadness, contentment, and disappointments ... if we peek deep into the roots, we may find that often, almost all these emotions are triggered by "external factors or external parties". The common word stitching all these together is EXPECTATION.

Bussinss Transactions

If one lists down almost everything we do daily, most are 'business-like' transactions. Paying for a service or product, helping someone 'expecting' a thank you or a 'tip', supporting someone 'expecting' to be highlighted for the support .... transactions where 'expectation' is inherent. But is the 'expected outcome' within our control? Someone is saying thank you. Is it within our control? It is not.

Bitterness

Now comes the tough part. I'm certain we have felt bitter about certain situations or about certain people in our lives. without looking for reasons if we assess the impact of the emotion "Bitterness" had on us, it is almost always unpleasant. In my humble opinion, Bitterness is a "choice". It is an emotion we 'choose' to trigger largely due to an outcome that is not Our "expected outcome". The Expectation Gap triggers bitterness. Bitterness irritates us at first and if we let it grow stronger, It consumes us and takes over our usual demeanour ... changing us into a worse version of ourselves.

But hang on.... should not we ask ourselves "The trigger that sparked bitterness in me, isn't that not within my control? Isn't it because I had no control over the expected outcome? ". It may dawn on us, that indeed, the Bitterness is "self-inflicted" and maybe the trigger has ceased to exist but we are allowing the resultant Bitterness to take control of us and turn us into unpleasant beings. When this realization sparks in us, more often than not, we get the courage and will to let go of bitterness and start healing.

Gratefulness

Much has been written on being grateful and much more needs to be emphasized. This is one emotion and behaviour which has both the power to heal oneself and heal others around you. Gratefulness starts with letting go of Expectations. Being grateful to nature for clean air to breathe cleanses our own minds of anxiety and brings in a certain element of calm. Breathing is the most fundamental thing to a human. Self-awareness of the healing aspect of Breathing helps manage tough situations daily. Practising being grateful to your parents, siblings, friends, colleagues, dentist, your daily helper .... all these grateful moments fill you with positive energy while those who you show gratefulness towards, feel they are genuinely appreciated. Practising gratefulness is "not a business transaction". It is an action which builds positive energy in you irrespective of what it does to everything external to you. It is the Opposite of Bitterness.

Daily routine.

Building Gratefulness into your daily routine will help you to maintain a relatively high level of "happy and content" moments resulting in emanating a positive aura around yourself. Keeping a written log of "what, why, who" you felt a sense of gratefulness will help you to reflect on how much beauty is there in the world and how much YOU can contribute to keeping it that way. 21 days of doing this may help form a habit of being Grateful and you will see how you have transformed into a much better version of yourself in the process.