Cultivate Deep Appreciation
Hint: it's not the same thing as gratitude
Happy Thanksgiving!
It’s Thanksgiving day in the United States. I’m writing this at a quarter to seven a.m. Forgive any typos. I need to get to cooking!
We have a winter storm warning in effect, but we only have to drive 45 minutes to my eldest daughter’s home and we’re used to driving in bad weather here in the rural hilltops of Cortland County NY. My firstborn is next door in Madison County. She’s hosting this year. Not every family member can be there, but we see each other often, so we’ll make up time with those who miss it, and we’ll all come together again on Christmas Eve at my house, when I’m pretty sure everyone will make it.
Just going back over the paragraph I just wrote, I can find a number of things for which I feel grateful and for which I am thankful. Almost in every sentence.
I’m grateful to live in the USA and particularly in the state of NY and even more particularly in these rural foothills that surround me. I often say, especially in fall and winter, that I live in the most beautiful place I know.
But that’s gratitude, not appreciation.
I am grateful for having spent the first 62 years of my life in a free nation, and I hope to spend the rest of my life living in one, regardless of the impending four-year speed bump.
Again, gratitude, thankfulness, but not appreciation.
I’m grateful that my family is huge and close and loves each other and that we live close enough for frequent in-person visits. My longest drive to a daughter is an hour and ten minutes or so, and the farthest-flung adult grandchild is only about ten minutes farther. Not every parent of adult offspring enjoys this proximity, and I’m constantly aware of how rare and wonderful it is. Not to mention that we get along, have a great time together, and all agree on politics. All blessings for which I’m endlessly thankful.
But that’s not appreciation, either.
True appreciation
Appreciation isn’t just feeling grateful and saying thank you. Appreciation literally means, “To increase in value.” And if you dive into that a bit (and that’s what we do here) we can get a better idea of the difference between gratitude and appreciation.
When I see a clear, sunny day outside my window, I might feel grateful and thankful for it.
When I decide to spend some quality time outside enjoying that clear, sunny day, I am appreciating it. It increases in value because basking, working, or playing for hours in bright sunlight and bliss are far more valuable to me than glancing out the window, noticing the day and feeling thankful for it.
Knowing my family are close enough that I can see them whenever I want is something I feel thankful for. But actually using that proximity to increase quality time with my girls and their beautiful families is true appreciation. Basking in their nearness and taking advantage of it is very different from just noting it exists and feeling grateful for it.
See the difference?
Gratitude is saying “thank you,” and noticing the good fortune in our lives.
But appreciating that good fortune requires us to drop all the 10,000 things we’re juggling and wrap ourselves in that one thing— truly milking from it all the joy it can bring, increasing its value to us by increasing the happiness we take from it.
Gratitude is me, just now looking out the window beside me at the falling snow as it gets light enough to see it, and noticing how it clings to all the trees, and saying to my husband, “Gosh it’s beautiful out there! Just look at it!” (Which I just did.)
Appreciation will be in a little while when I bundle up in boots and coat, hat and scarf, and take the dog outside to romp around in it. I’ll take her for a walk, take a dozen photos, share them with my friends, breathe the cold air, feel it on my face, and smile the whole time.
How to
So as we make our lists of things for which we’re thankful today, all this week, all holiday season long, and all the rest of the year if you do this frequently as I do, we need to take a second look at each item on our list and make a plan to increase its value to us.
Top of everyone’s list is always family. I’m grateful for my family. So what are you doing about it? What are you doing to max out your enjoyment of the family for which you are so grateful? Is there any way to jack that up a bit in the coming year? Are there opportunities we’re letting slip by, unused, un, dare I say, appreciated?
Most people list their health as something for which they are thankful. What are you doing to “appreciate” or “increase” or “bask in” that health for which you say you’re thankful? Are you exercising your good health, or letting it decline gradually from lack of use? Are you enjoying the fact that you can still move around by moving even more? Are you enjoying your healthy diet by eating even healthier? Are you appreciating your good health by improving it and making it last?
In both of the above cases, boosting our gratitude into full appreciation will automatically bring even more reasons to feel thankful. Both those line items from the gratitude list will be exponentially bigger and better a year from now if we spend the year appreciating them. Our families will be closer and happier from the extra efforts we put in to enjoying them. Our health will be exponentially improved if we, instead of just feeling grateful for it what we have, appreciate it by using it, expanding it, paying attention to it, and inevitably improving it.
So make your list
Like every year, go ahead, make your list of things for which you are most thankful in your life. Give thanks for them and feel grateful for them and realize how special they are.
Then, check it twice
Keep your list throughout the coming year, and make an effort to put more appreciation into each item on it. Pay more attention to each blessing, nurture it, feed it, spend time with it, bask in it, expand and improve it. In other words, truly appreciate it.
You can do one item at a time, or just gradually increase your enjoyment of all of them at once. This exercise can double as a group of easy New Year’s Resolution. Just review the list often and make sure you are giving attention to all those things for which you are grateful, making the most of them.
Work-Life Balance
Most of us work very hard to earn our income.
Most of us believe we are working that hard and earning that income in order to improve our lives.
Most of us never get around to enjoying those life improvements because we’re too busy working.
It’s time, this year more than ever, for us to appreciate all we have.
My mother in law Lee’s favorite seven words were “Make the best of what you have.”Appreciation is how we do that.
Happy Thanksgiving dear readers!
May your blessings be myriad, and may you and gather great joy from every one of them.
Kick off the Holidays right
Small-town Thanksgiving Romance
Guaranteed to lift you right up!
