Want to be happy? Be grateful | David Steindl-Rast

Translator: Doruntin Shabani Reviewer: Helena Bedalli It is something that you know about me, something very personal, and it is something that I know about each of you, which is at the center of your concerns. It is something that we all know about anyone we meet anywhere in the world, on the street, who is very motivated in whatever they do and whatever they do, and that is that we all

want

to be

happy

. We are all in this together. How do we imagine our happiness, which is different from that of others, but there is much that we have in common, that we all

want

to be

happy

?

My theme is gratitude. What is the connection between happiness and gratitude? Many people would say that it is too easy. When you are happy, you are

grateful

. But think again. Is it true that happy people are

grateful

? We all know several people who have everything they need to be happy and they are not happy because they want something more or want more of that. We all know people who have many misfortunes, misfortunes that we would not have wanted for ourselves, and they are deeply happy. They radiate happiness. You are surprised. Because? Because they are grateful. So it is not happiness that makes us grateful.

It is gratitude that makes us happy. If you think happiness is what makes you feel grateful, think again. It's gratitude that makes you happy. Now, we can ask ourselves, what do we really mean by gratitude? And how it works? Ask from your experience. We all know from experience how it goes. We experience something that has value to us. We are given something that has value to us. And it is really given to us. These two things must come together. It must be something valuable and a true gift. You didn't buy it. You didn't deserve it. You didn't change it.

You didn't work for it. It was just given to you. And when these two things come together, something that is very valuable to me and I notice that I have been forgiven, then the gratitude in my heart grows spontaneously, the happiness in my heart grows spontaneously. This is how gratitude happens. The point of all this is that we don't get to experience this very often. We cannot only have experiences of gratitude. We can be grateful people. The point is to be grateful. And how can we be grateful? Experiment and become aware that every moment is a gift, as we say.

It's a gift. You didn't deserve it. You didn't cause it in any way. You have no way of guaranteeing that they will be given another moment, and yet it is the most valuable thing we can ever be given, this moment, with all the possibilities it contains. If we don't have this moment, we wouldn't have the opportunity to do anything or experience anything, and this moment is a gift. It's a given moment, as we say. We say that the gift within the gift is truly the opportunity. What you are so grateful for is this opportunity, not the one you were given, because if it were somewhere else and you didn't have the opportunity to enjoy it, to do something with it, you wouldn't be grateful. he.

Opportunity is the gift in every gift, and we have this saying: opportunity only knocks once. Well, think about it. Every moment is a new gift, again and again, and if you miss the opportunity of this moment, another moment will come, and another. We can benefit from this opportunity, or we can lose it, and if we take advantage of it, it is the key to happiness. We have the main key to happiness in our hands. In every moment we can be grateful for this gift. Does this mean we can be grateful for everything? Of course not. We cannot be grateful for violence, war, oppression, exploitation.

On a personal level we cannot be grateful for the loss of a friend, for infidelity, for a great loss. But I didn't say we can be grateful for everything. I said that we should be grateful at every moment for the opportunity, even when we are faced with something that is very difficult, we can take advantage of this opportunity and respond to the opportunity that has been given to us. It's not as bad as it seems. In fact, when you look at it and experience it, you discover that most of the time, what we are given is the opportunity to enjoy and we miss it just because we rush through life and do not stop to see the opportunity.

But sometimes something very difficult comes our way, and when something difficult happens to us, it's a challenge to rise to that opportunity, and we can overcome it by learning something, which is sometimes painful. Learn to be patient, for example. We are told that the path to peace is not a sprint but rather a marathon. Patience is needed. It's hard. You may fight for your opinion, fight for your beliefs. It is an opportunity that has been given to us. Learning, suffering, fighting, all these opportunities are given to us, but they are opportunities, and those who take advantage of them are those we admire.

They get something out of life and those who fail get another chance. We always have another chance. This is the wonderful richness of life. So how can we find a way to control this? How can each of us find a way to live with gratitude, not to be grateful just once, but to be grateful every moment? How can we do it? It is a very simple way. It's as simple as what we were told as children when we learned to cross the street. Arrest. Look. Walk. This is all. But how often do we stop? We run through life.

We do not stop. We lose the opportunity because we don't stop. We have to stop. We need to calm down. And we need to incorporate stop signs into our lives. When I was in Africa a few years ago and then came back, I noticed the water. Where I was in Africa, I had no drinking water. Every time I turned on the tap I was surprised. Every time I turned on the light, I was so grateful. It makes me very happy. But after a while, this feeling disappears. So I put some stickers on the light switch and the water faucet, and every time I turned it on, water.

So leave it to the imagination. You can find what works best for you, but we need stop signs in our lives. And when you stop, the next thing is to look. You will see. You open your eyes. Open your ears. Open your nose. Open all your senses to this wonderful wealth that has been gifted to us. There is no end, and that is life, enjoying what you have been given. And then we can open our hearts to the possibilities and possibilities of helping others, of making others happy, because nothing makes us happier than being happy. And when we open our hearts to the possibilities, the possibilities invite us to do something, and that's the third.

Stop, look and go and do something. What we can do is whatever life offers us at that moment. Many times it is the opportunity to enjoy it, but sometimes it is something more difficult. However, if we take advantage of this opportunity, we take advantage of it, we are creative, these are the creative people, and that small stop, look, go, is a powerful seed that can revolutionize the world. Because we need it, we are right now in the middle of a shift in consciousness, and you'd be surprised if... I'm always surprised when I hear the word "gratitude" mentioned.

Everywhere you find it, a grateful airline, a grateful restaurant, a grateful coffee, a grateful wine. Yes, I have even seen a toilet paper whose brand is called Falemnderit. (Laughs) It's a wave of gratitude because people are realizing how necessary this is and how it can change the world. It can change our world in incredibly important ways, because if you are grateful, you are not afraid, and if you are not afraid, you are not violent. If you are grateful, you react with a sense of abundance rather than a sense of insufficiency and want to share. If you are grateful, you are enjoying the differences between people and are respectful of everyone.

This changes this pyramid of power we live under. And you don't do it for equality, you do it for equal respect, and that's what matters. The future of the world will be a network, not a pyramid, not an inverted pyramid. The revolution I am talking about is a non-violent revolution and is not so revolutionary as to revolutionize any concept of revolution, because a normal revolution is when a pyramid of power is turned upside down and those who were at the bottom remain at the top and do the same. that others did before. What we need is a network of small groups, small groups that know each other, that interact with each other, and it is a grateful world.

A grateful world is a world of happy people. Grateful people are happy people, and the more happy people we have, the happier we will have a world. We have a network on living with gratitude and it has grown quickly. We couldn't understand why it grew so quickly. We have the opportunity for people to light a candle when they are grateful for something. And in a decade 15 million candles have been lit. People have become aware that a grateful world is a happy world, and we all have the opportunity by simply stopping, looking, going to transform the world, to turn it into a happy place.

And that's what I hope for us, and if this has contributed in any way to you wanting to do the same, stop, look and continue. Thank you. (Applause)