At times our acts of expressing gratitude can be biased towards liking or not liking the person or a particular work.
We can only overcome this by not attaching our emotions to observing the effort. When someone helps us in any manner, they have overcome their own procrastination to help us. This gratitude is to recognise and respect that victory of the person’s will over their procrastination.
Best to keep emotions, opinions, judgements, subjective thoughts outside this gratitude statement focus the gratitude towards the action (effort).
The gratitude must be valid even if the person was not X but Y who helped you similarly.
It should not depend that: “For X, I’m grateful for this act, but if Y had done the same act then probably not.” It should also not depend that: “For X, I’m grateful for this act because I liked the clothes they were wearing, or held a certain position, or came from a certain social strata – but if Y had done the same act then probably not, because they didn’t display any of the above or didn’t fit the notion of my likable persons.”
When Posting or Sharing Your Gratitude:
- Share the gratitude for 1 incident or towards one individual – if you have more than one individual or incident to thank for, you can note those in your journal.
- Your sharing on the group is not to infringe on your privacy rather to help cultivate the courage on your feeling and thought will.
- Keep it brief, you can avoid names if you prefer.
- Gratitude of any other nature is valid – like thanking the day, your life or other things – and can be as part of your personal practice, but not required for the boot camp.
Any person who helps you today, has overcome their own procrastination and stepped out of their comfort zone to help you, however small or big.
All other forms of gratitude are valid and for the boot camp purpose, it is the act or effort of an individual in overcoming their own inertia to help you, that you’re recognizing and acknowledging by expressing your gratitude.
Capt. Preetham Madhukar