Gratitude

     

The problem with fear is that it keeps you from appreciating how miraculous life is and how blessed you are. The time spent fearing and distrusting your fellow man is time not spent appreciating how they make your life not only better but possible. When you break things down into “us” and “them” then you fail to feel the gratitude you should for what they do for you.

     And make no mistake, gratitude is a wonderful feeling, as well as being an essential element for spiritual health. You cannot feel happy without feeling gratitude, one flows naturally from the other. And if you are incapable of gratitude, you will never know happiness.

     Some people are do-it-yourselfers, and I respect and admire that. I wish I was the kind who could build my own garage, re-wire my house, or grow my own food. But even the most self-sufficient of us requires the fruits of other people’s labor. Even those living out in the wilderness have with them possessions that were made by others, perhaps on the other side of the world.

     From time to time I might find myself lying in bed and aware of all of the work that has gone into the building of the house my wife and I am fortunate enough to call our own. I assure you that such an awareness brings a greater sense of gratitude than were my home a palace. Not only have people I never met put together the walls from timber and drywall, someone has cut down the trees so that other people at a mill might fashion the wood into proper building material. People have installed plumbing and electrical items whose component parts come from all corners of the world. Somebody mined the copper, somebody shipped it, while others transformed it into the wires that lay hidden within the walls and bring to me the miracle of electricity that is possible because of the people working at the power plant, using coal that was mined in Kentucky coal mines and shipped to us up Lake Michigan. And let us not forget those who repair the wires that bring the electricity to our houses, those who create the appliances it powers, etc.

     You see, we are incredibly interdependent. And we are all part of an immensely complex system. Even those who do not seem to contribute are still a part of it. And before we judge those we believe are not contributing sufficiently to the greater good, perhaps we should first ask ourselves if we are adequately rewarding those who do so much for us? Are we providing those who give us life-sustaining food an adequate piece of a pie that is large enough to provide for all? Is their work not as vital as any, and if so should they not be compensated accordingly? Not only those who own the land and the equipment but those who work long hours in the field. There are many working long hours in developing nations to provide the clothes and electronics we feel is our rightful payment for the work we do, and yet those individuals are not driving around in new cars. Often, they do not even have adequate shoes to walk where they need to get.

     But instead of appreciation for those who provide so much for us, we often fear and judge those whom we believe may be taking from us. When I think of all those who have worked to build the house I have, the books I read and music I listen to, gratitude takes the place of fear. Fear is a self-indulgence we cannot afford. And by fear I include hatred, for hatred is just a reaction of the fearful to those they fear.

     We are all in this together whether we like it or not. We are all going to survive because we have found a way to live together or we will perish because we have not. Demagogues try and turn one against the other, always for the benefit of a few who profit from all. It is our job not only to do the work that brings us our daily bread and the bounty we sometimes fail to appreciate, but to ensure that others who do their job are taken care of as well. That is what gratitude is all about, and it is not a burden but a source of joy. Life would not be so sweet nor rich without it.

The Game Of Monopoly

     The reason the game of Monopoly does not permit borrowing is that the game would never end. Not only would it never end, it would soon become intolerable. Those with all the property would only become richer, while those without would only go further into debt. There would be no joy to be derived from the game by the losers and no joy either for the winners unless they had some pathological need to acquire money and property beyond measure. Even so, they would require a little bit of sadism in order to derive any measure of enjoyment from such a game.

     Now imagine that each time you were to play Monopoly that you carried your previous score with you. And not you only but your score would be passed down to your children and grandchildren so that if you were a loser your children would be forced to move their thimble across a board where all the property is already owned (the winner’s kid would have the racecar, which was bargained away from you when you landed on Boardwalk with a hotel on it).

     Who would call such a game fair? Who would wish to play such a game? And for those in perpetual debt, who would blame them if they overturned the board, scattering houses and hotels everywhere?

     Of course the Chance cards would be rigged too, so that the one in debt would have to shoulder the burden of the taxes. The card would read “Pay $500 in taxes” but it would have an asterisk next to it stating that property owners could deduct $50 for upkeep for each building owned.

     The loser would spend a lot of time in jail. Indeed, that might be a place of safety for him, a place where for a brief span of time they wouldn’t have to worry about racking up further debt. The loser wouldn’t really care about keeping out, wouldn’t worry about landing on the Go Directly To Jail square. Free Parking would be his only hope. The property owner, of course, would never have to worry about spending any real time in jail. Sure, he could get sent there, but he’d always have enough to buy his way out the next roll.

     Every lap around the board, the loser would be reminded of the time when he was just starting out with a little house on Baltic Avenue. Sure, it didn’t seem like much at the time but it was all he really ever needed. Of course, there’s a motel on there now, but it’s not his own, and the price is rather steep. Still, one has to rest somewhere eventually, even if it drives him further in debt.

     Happily, those are not the rules of the game of Monopoly. If they were, nobody would want to play. It would be the dumbest game ever.