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Which is more important: happiness or gratitude? I think the answer is clear, but the opposite view seems to get more play and more buy-in. The result is that we live in a world that is often marked by both unhappiness and ingratitude. What do you think?

In the United States, we are promised by the Constitution the right to pursue happiness, and that idea distinctly permeates the culture and attitudes of Americans. That phrase was coined over two hundred years ago, but it has undergone a subtle change in the zeitgeist of these modern times. We have shortened the phrase from a “right to pursue happiness” and seem to believe now that we all have a “right to happiness”.

Many people today live as if everyone has a right to happiness. Perhaps, we do not want to pursue happiness so much as we want it given to us. That view is conveyed and reinforced in politics, and in popular TV shows, Disney movies, popular books and in many other ways.

We rarely stop to think about it. We just assume it, and that assumption leads to unrealistic expectations and frustrations because happiness comes and goes. Happiness is fleeting and often eludes us. It can even elude us when we have everything we want!

Happiness is a relative term. The things that make me happy many not make my neighbor happy. The things I find to be most pleasurable, satisfying, and fulfilling my neighbor may not value much at all. Things that make one person happy might even make other people unhappy, because our desires often conflict with others. (I like to play music loud, but that doesn’t make my neighbor happy!)

Our happiness is often connected to and affected by other people. Our happiness is often tangled up in how other people see us, relate to us, and interact with us. Spouses, parents, family and friends, co-workers, and even acquaintances, impact on our happiness. The things we want from them they may not be able, or willing, to give us.

Our happiness is often subject to things we cannot control. The fact that we cannot control them, itself, is a source of unhappiness. Unhappiness grows out of the way people treat us, and interact with us, and social structures that are out of our control. For that reason, and others, happiness is a spurious goal and an illusory right.

We might erroneously believe that gratitude grows out of happiness. While happiness may depend to some extent on our gratitude, gratitude does not depend at all on happiness. We can be grateful even when we are not happy, but happiness is difficult, if not impossible, to find without gratitude.

While we think of happiness as a right, we might view gratitude as an obligation or something others earn from us (maybe for making us happy). Gratitude is sometimes also our response when we are thankful for things we do not deserve or do not think we deserve. In fact, if we think we have earned what we have, we tend to be more proud and self-satisfied than grateful.

Gratitude is more than a reaction; it’s a choice. Happiness is a state of being that is experienced like an ocean mist or a summer breeze, but gratitude is an attitude we choose or embrace. We can choose to be happy, also, but that kind of “happiness” begins to look a lot more like gratitude.

Consider the situation of Martin Pistorius. At the age of 12, his body began to fail him. He became unable to move, unable to speak, unable to do anything. He lapsed into unconsciousness…. for two years! When he began to “come to”, he found that he was trapped inside his own body, isolated and utterly alone. He had lost all control of his body, and all he could do was think.

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