I have been exploring gratitude throughout my doctoral thesis, and I am beginning to wonder indeed how this practice can really penetrate into a daily philosophy. Some have talked about "growth" mindset, but what would a "gratitude" mindset look like? One principle I can think of is that, no matter what our situation happens to be, there is always a hidden good side to it, even in the face of confusion or disasters. Some have called this a "silver lining" in the cloud, but I think more can be said of it than simply having a positive attitude.
Contemporary society, particularly advertising, seems to prime people to think of their lives as an evolution that proceeds from "bad" to "better" and, finally, to "best". Few people are able to, under these circumstances, frame their current situation as the best that it could be. In fact, I think that this attitude of seeing that this is the best of all possible worlds, must have fallen out of fashion since Voltaire satirized it in Candide. But there is merit in seeing that the position one is in now is the best of all possible positions. For one, it eliminates wishful thinking, wherein a person imagines all manner of possibilities yet does not reconcile themselves to the present one. Second, it allows a person to stop and really reflect on what is going well, and what can actually improve in and of itself, given time, without having to make enormous changes to one's lifestyle or situation. Thirdly, it allows for a fully and unequivocal trust that one is exactly where one needs to be in life, to receive life's lessons. This might be the beginning of a gratitude mindset, which I will describe in subsequent entries.
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