Work and Gratitude

A thankful riff

I’ve been looking for work. Something on the side to keep my mind pliable, the bank account solvent. It’s frustrating and I fight not to succumb to dreadful thoughts of destitution in a society prone to abandon the old, infirm, and deranged - me, us. My black moods evaporate when I figure out how lucky I am to even just be here…now. It takes effort to cultivate that gratitude - but it’s worth it. It’s the antidote.

Work and gratitude. Work provides the bare necessities to pay for this existence, to exchange time for food and shelter. Gratitude makes this existence bearable, reminds us why we are here, and nurtures awe.

Work can be the crushing bore of the grey cubicle, the clattering yammer of machinery, a long grey line of drones stumbling to the grave. Terrifying. Yet, a thought stirs, tickles, comes to the front, and gets tapped out on my keyboard.

What is work really? What generates gratitude? Can these two things be the same thing? Could expressing gratitude be the work?

Gratitude is the necessary condition for happiness. I am oftentimes swallowed by grief and fear and dread. Financially I am undone, loved ones have vanished, and plans have gone awry. But I recover with gratitude. Gratitude is miraculous. It gets more potent as material well-being diminishes. In a paradox, the poorer I am, the more grateful I become. My professional journey is over, no longer do I chase accomplishment in a vocational sense, and no longer do I pursue riches. Now, my journey is internal - a deep dive within - to discover what makes this mind tick. Time is short, there is much to learn. What - out there - causes joy in here?

Gratitude. Gratitude causes joy, is joy. Nature - the other-than-human wild - generates gratitude. Rain falls from a magic sky, the universe unfolds in a blade of grass, a flower dazzles, the ocean heaves, brother grizzly roots in the bracken, mushrooms, and trees cooperate, mother whale sings, sister frog croaks, owly hoots night-joy - immaculate gifts - how could I not be grateful.

The fallout from gratitude is joy and compassion. It goes like this - suffering relieved by gratitude causes joy and creates compassion. Stand with me in a grassy field of dewy grass with a sprinting dog lit by perfect sunshine glinting off her shining fur while across the blue bay shines a snowy white volcano. What light, what joy, what magnificence, what a gift? If only the suffering ones could see and feel and smell this moment with us! Bang! Compassion.

The work then is to communicate this miracle. We’ve been given a ticket to the show - we get to be here….in this glittering now. When we feel the sun on our back, the breeze on our cheek, and the cool air in our lungs - we feel too the miracle of inter-being - the miracle of co-existence - the miracle of gratitude, joy, compassion and love.

And so we come to beloved poet Mary Oliver…

My work is loving the world.

Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird — equal seekers of sweetness.

Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.

Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn? Am I no longer young and still not half-perfect?

Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.

The phoebe, the delphinium. The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.

Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart and these body-clothes, a mouth with which to give shouts of joy to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,

telling them all, over and over, how it is that we live forever. ~Mary Oliver

(Book: Thirst: Poems https://amzn.to/3UTMWfM)