An attitude of gratitude is the gateway to happiness, says DR PUSHPA CHATURVEDI
My life is like a story book. Any chapter I open, the end seems the same ― there’s always something to be grateful for; sometimes for the happy moments I was blessed with; sometimes for strength, hope and courage that helped me to cope with adversity and losses. Many life incidents cross my mind as I reminisce on my difficult days and how at the end of each story, my heart was always filled with gratitude to God.
In the course of my life, I have realised that by practising gratitude in each situation, happy or sad, we live with the highest positive feeling of life where negativity has no chance, because it is impossible to be stressed and fearful, and happy and thankful at the same time. I have learned for a fact that when you experience gratefulness, it paves the way to peace and happiness.
I am grateful to God for coming to my rescue in many catastrophic incidents in my life. Here are a few of them.
It was a busy, noisy day in 1979 when I was boarding a crowded Mumbai local train at Andheri station, accompanied by my five-year-old son. Seeing the surging crowd, I thought it would be wise to first push my son into the compartment and then let myself in. In the mad rush, I couldn’t manage a foothold into the train, which grunted away, and I was left, standing helplessly on the platform.
A Good Samaritan took care of my son and got down with him at the next station. I boarded the next train and spotted him at the next station platform. I felt a surge of gratitude pour from my inside and I clung to him and wept, while the Good Samaritan quietly disappeared. I believe God reunited me with my son.
Two years later, in 1981, my two sons, both under ten years, were playing in our tenth floor home balcony with low balustrades in Benghazi, Libya. They accidentally got locked there for eight hours as they playfully banged the self-locking entrance door shut, while we parents were in our respective hospitals working, unaware of their plight.
There were no mobiles then. No neighbours were around to help and rescue them. We came in the evening and were shocked. We struggled and somehow managed to unlock the door, hugged them and felt highly grateful to Almighty God.
Then it was in 1992 when my husband and I had climbed all the way uphill to the Vaishno Devi Shrine to pay our gratitude for the admission of my younger son to MBBS. On our way down, it was raining. I suddenly slipped, fell and went rapidly rolling down the mountain side. Luckily, I got caught in a bush, which halted my fall.
The consequences of the fall were severe. I sustained a bad back injury, oozing bruises all over, but was otherwise well. On hearing about the accident, my mother remarked that she was grateful that Matarani had blessed me by saving me from a big catastrophe, as anything could have happened. Despite the pain and being bed- ridden for six weeks, my gratitude just poured in, thinking of how I was saved by God’s grace.
I could go on with many more such life challenges, which made me anxious, stressed, and sad and left me weeping. I broke down with some unfortunate, irreparable losses of loved ones, but at the end I always emerged strong. On looking at my losses, I realised that I was still blessed, and felt grateful that there were many more loved ones still around to be with me on this beautiful journey of life.
Indeed, life is a gift, not an obligation; so instead of feeling burdened and complaining, “Life is unfair, why me? Why do I have to face this? How will I manage?” if you instead, say … “I’ve got to do this; I’ll be able to move on; I am strong, this too shall pass; there must be something good hidden in this, I must appreciate what I have,” shows you are changing a complaining voice to a grateful voice, full of courage and hope coming straight from the heart. We must look for the hidden treasure in every trial or test life throws at us.
Expressing and practising gratitude is associated with many positive emotions such as optimism, patience, generosity with time and resources, accepting life as it unfolds and overall vitality and strength of mind. By being grateful instead of grumbling, we can definitely grow emotionally and spiritually, and change for the better.
An attitude of gratitude is a sure-shot antidote to mental and physical traumas of life. It recharges our happiness battery and it is the quickest route to happiness. It’s a good idea to be grateful all day long, to keep your happiness battery fully charged.
Thus, it will not be wrong if I say gratitude is the mother of happiness. Just like a baby cannot come into this world without a mother, so also happiness can’t be yours if you don’t live with the attitude of gratitude.
A mother’s heart gets filled with joy at the birth of her baby. In the same way, joyful, positive, benevolent feelings are experienced when we live with the habit of gratitude. To stay happy, first and foremost, we need to be grateful for what we have and not lament about what we don’t.
Four simple words will change your life forever ― think positive, be grateful.
Dr Pushpa Chaturvedi, a paediatrician with over 50 years’ experience, is an educationist and researcher, with over 100 research publications, mainly on social paediatrics in renowned medical journals. Ex-Professor and Head of Department of Paediatrics, MGIMS Sevagram, Wardha, she is a thinker, writer, poet, artist and a spiritual blogger with over 500 blogs to her credit. Dr Chaturvedi is also a keen traveller, music and nature lover.
Blessed indeed is the grateful ! Such a one’s house is never empty, in the ambiance of gracefulness, it brims to the full.
One who is as such, feels the spillover of this ultimate joy and just flows with it, permeating through every pore of life like an overwhelming fragrance…making everything complete and full.
This as such is not merely good living but God living in itself…and being grateful only makes it possible.