by Dio Communications
Let your Gratitude drive your Attitude
Rev Stephen Black — July 30, 2023
There has been a bit of conversation at school recently around attitude. We have talked about the glass half-full, the glass half-empty, and the glass I never ordered, so I don't care how much is in it because I am sure not going to drink it. In a similar vein, Oscar Wilde once quipped: “Between the optimist and the pessimist, the difference is droll. The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist the hole!” Recently I met someone who celebrates both. She very clearly located herself in the camp that shouts, "You can't have the doughnut without the hole!"
That's life for most of us. We have a range of experiences that we determine as good, bad or indifferent - and then we reinterpret them through retrospect and the influence of others. When we get this right, we call it perspective. I had a placement at Auckland Hospital as a chaplain some years ago. I worked in the diabetic ward where most people were dealing with amputation. Patients' perspective on their own life was significantly influenced by the people they shared a ward with. In a room with six beds, you could be confident that at least half the patients would say (in a loud voice), "I'm doing much better than 'Barry'; there's less of him every day!" By the time I got to 'Barry', what remained of him was completely crushed. This kind of perspective is a bit limited.
Recently I met someone with cancer. She is an extraordinary young woman who does not know if she will live for months or years, so instead, she is living for each moment. She has reoriented her priorities, sorted some coping strategies, and managed her treatments as best she can. She is also seeing the world with absolute wonder. The preciousness of relationships is paramount, but the miraculous conversion of a caterpillar into a butterfly is exactly that. She is totally distracted by a bird washing in a puddle or sunshine through a spiderweb. The world is a beautiful place.
She gets angry, and she gets sad. She is not living her best life but living her life the best she can. In the chapel, I tried to describe this as living life diligently.
We get caught up with diligence in our school work, diligence on the football field, and diligently undertaking music practice, but I want to suggest that real diligence is about our approach to life. If we can find the capacity to celebrate the wonder of the world around us, we can live with gratitude. Gratitude makes us thankful for the glass, irrespective of how much is in it. Gratitude enables us to give half the doughnut away. So may our attitude be driven by our gratitude.
Amen.
Rev Stephen Black | Chaplain
