Grateful For Gratitude

Members of the Waitsburg Christian Church found a small care package at their door step or tied to their door knob Sunday.

In a plastic bag was a little bundle of chocolate candy and a 8.5x11 seasonal Thanksgiving greeting.

As part of a reminder how blessed we are, the message said this is "a time to give thanks to the Lord above, for friends and family to share our love. May we share these blessings of love with our neighbors too, as our Lord and savior would have us do."

Instigator Pam Conover credited the congregation's children and some of the adults with making and delivering the sweet words, not just to congregation members but also to "neighbors" whom she thought might need a little tender, loving care.

Her project comes on the heels of last week's Luminaria, a festive lighting of candles on downtown streets through which newcomers Bruce Donohue and Allison Bond thanked the Waitsburg community for the way they have been received here.

These random acts of reciprocal kindness are encouraging for our town. Waitsburg has always been "one-of-akind" when it comes to friendliness, and gratitude goes hand in hand with that.

As we prepare for the unique American tradition of Thanksgiving, it's worth exploring the definition and psychological meaning of gratitude.

It is couched as a "feeling or attitude in acknowledgement of a benefit that one has received or will receive," according to one online definition. It is not be mistaken with "indebtedness," which implies an obligation to feel or act.

What is of interest to us is the notion that gratitude itself has benefits to the bearer or the feeling or attitude.

A large body of recent psychological research suggests that grateful people have a higher level of well-being, suggesting they are generally happier, less depressed, less stressed, and more satisfied with their lives and their social relationships.

Grateful people appear to cope better with difficulties in their lives, and even sleep better at night because they have more positive than negative thoughts before they fall asleep.

The act of writing gratitude letters and journals has proven to significantly boost participants' happiness scores in mental health therapy studies, while thankfulness has long been believed to be closely connected to other positive words and deeds, particularly altruistic ones.

According to the Roman philosopher Marcus Cicero, "gratitude is not only the greatest virtue, it is the parent of all others."

And, it appears to work in two directions with people receiving acts of gratitude more likely to be altruistic or grateful as long as the original expression of appreciation is pristine.

One study, for instance, found that customers of store who were thanked for their purchase showed a 70-percent increase in additional purchases, while those who were thanked along with an announcement for an upcoming sale only registered a 30-percent boost and those who weren't thanked, no rise at all.

So strong is gratitude as a determinant of psychological well-being that a special therapy movement has sprung up to promote "interventions" (gratitude exercises) that boost individuals' gratitudometer and overall quality of life, especially through the act of thinking of someone to whom they are grateful.

So, go ahead and send some thoughts, a letter or gift to someone to whom you are grateful for this Thanksgiving and your emotional return on investment may well be quite high.

Then, do one more thing: hold that thought or continue that practice for the rest of the year and the years beyond.