New Side of Gratitude
In Barbara Ehrenreich article “The Selfish side of gratitude” we are given a new aspect of the word gratitude. She defines gratitude as an oxymoron claiming that the gratitude we as a society tend to use is mainly a selfish gratitude. She argues that we shouldn’t do away with gratitude because expressing gratitude is important but rather “it should be a more vigorous and inclusive sort of gratitude than what is being urged on us now”. This selfish side of gratitude has caused a social issue, in which people expect to gain things from showing gratitude or have become too lazy to express it to another person. This is when you get phases like how does that benefit me or it’s not my problem, because of this mentally that
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One example would be something as simple as watch t.v and eating dinner, this is a habit we have all done before. In this situation the t.v turns on and you see a video of starving children on your t.v screen, you take a moment of silent. After you pity the children then comes the prayer to God, thanking God that you aren’t in that situation. This is the part when your self-gratitude comes out, instead of trying to go out and help the child or even pray for the child’s well-being, where stuck praying for ourselves. We try to express gratitude by thanking God for the roof over our heads and the foods he’s provided for us today, after all that’s done we get a good feeling in our hearts, and go back to eating dinner and talking about our day while the child is still starving. This is what Barbara was trying to talk about in her article, about how everything’s becoming a “you and you” relationship We as a social aren’t really trying that hard to help other because when we see a bad situation instead of going after it and trying to make it better we tend to focus on the our lives and selfishly bring it back to us and how grateful we are that it wasn’t us, and that isn’t helping anyone get
Gratitude is a gift that the earth urgently needs. Consistent gratitude is a form of recognition of the gift and the giver. Daily gratitude can help eliminate the need for more and practicing more of only what we need. Gratitude leads to a society of contentment rather than one that's always in need of more. We human individuals have conventions for appreciation; we apply them formally to each other. We say thank you. “We understand that receiving a gift
In Miriam Toews novel A Complicated Kindness there are many references to pop culture. There are references to music, books and films. These all lead to the development of key ideas in the novel. East Village is supposed to be a town free form the influence of most media. The children are allowed to watch certain films but only the ones the church deems fit. Yet somehow the un-holy films find their way into the procession of kids in the town like Nomi. The films are used to develop key ideas by showing that not everybody is happy with a strong importance on religion, where Nomi gets some of her influence for wanting to move to New York and how the church uses the ban on films to remain in control. The church isn’t successful on banning media so the kids grow up knowing names like The Rolling Stones and James Taylor. These musicians, the books they read and the movies they watch all add to the mystery of the outside world and what life would be like outside of East Village.
In the first section of his book (What You Have Received as Gift, Give as Gift) really make an impact on my views on living a fulfilled life. Everyone has a purpose and a gift on this life and everyone should know that they are somebody and everyone should know this to fulfill a good life. Everyone should work together and use our strengths to help others. God gave all of us a different and unique talent or gift and we should place that gift on others as God has done to us. When we showcase our gifts and talents, we should be grateful and show humility. We should not gloat our talents, but instead help others in order to gain a better understanding of others and the world around us. As Gula says “Gratitude is the virtue that gladly recognizes everything we have received as gifts to be shared, not possessions to be hoarded. Gratitude remembers, too, that God is the giver of these gifts” (Gula 30). My view on this is that gratitude and humility are one of the core values on living the good life because we can use these talents to gain understanding of our own self and others around us. Like God, we can use our gifts to also gain companionship, which God believes to be in reaching a good
Although, ‘modern’ age unsubtly supports swaggering egoistic behavior in the competitive arena such as international politics, commerce, and sport in another ‘traditional’ areas of the prideful selfishness showing off, to considerable extent discourages visible disobedience from the prevalent moral codes. In some cases, the open pro-egoist position, as was, per example, the ‘contextual’ interpretation of selfishness by famous German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, can be described as ‘grotesque anomaly’. He, probably through unconscious inner drive, effectively equalized two essentially opposite meanings in the following sentence segment “egoistic or LIFE-AFFIRMING behavior”!? (Helmut Schoeck, Quote from, ‘Der Neid’. Eine Theorie der Gesellschaft or in English, ‘Envy’. A Theory of Social Behavior, 1966, 1st English ed.
The Simple Gift by Steven Herrick explores the causes and challenges of homelessness in today's youth. It highlights the struggles that a victim of homelessness would go through, such as finding a place to sleep every night, and finding a source of food and money. The Simple Gift also showed some causes of homelessness, which were demonstrated in the book through out the story.
In Empathy, Stephen Dunn, who went to war to fight for his country. When he was on the leave from the army, he felt that it was the beginning of empathy for himself. In Too Much Happiness, Alice Munro learns about the significance of the relationship between a young mathematician named Sophia and her professor. The professor admits that one of his self-interest was for a student to challenge him completely, who is not only capable of following the rules of his own mind but to open up his mind. The interplay between empathy and self-interest is that they both effect on each other in many ways, such as, we benefit as a whole from selfless self-interest and caring for others more than we would from the survival of one at the cost of everyone else.
In the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, egotism-motivated altruism and empathy-motivated altruism can be compared. Gratitude and forgiveness are two important aspects to notice in the movie, especially of egotism or empathy motivated them. Altruism is defined as a behavior that is done aimed at benefiting another person (p.288). Altruism can either be done with egotism as a motive or empathy as a motive.
Even forms of human beings preforming selfless acts derives from ones desire to help others, which in a way makes that person feel importance. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, better known as Mother Teresa, devoted her life to helping those in great need. To many these acts may appear as selfless and gallant acts that are not performed by anyone with any type of ego. Yet when taking a psychological look at why she performed such acts they may appear a somewhat more for herself. Every time anyone does anything, even when for someone else, they are doing it for some type of feeling that they experience. With the holiday season approaching, there will be a specific emphasis on giving unlike any other time of the year. We give yes to show gratitude for someone we love, but also to experience the joy in seeing someone enjoy something they them self-caused. Even while being selfless humans have the unique ability to still be doing something that involves caring for them self. This outlook toward the human condition completely debunks Wolf’s claim that “when caring about yourself you are living as if you are the center of the universe.” When choosing to do anything positive or negative, for others or for yourself, you are still taking your self-interest into consideration, making it
When people have gratitude it makes ths country a better place. The people of this country could be caring, or helpful, and our country suffers from the selfish people in it. Gratitude makes a person an American, because they show respect to each and every person they meet and will meet in the future. They have the caring ways to help their friends, and family out at anytime. Gratitude is a trait that should be in any American citizen, because it shows the people of this country that it could be a better place if people would start treating others with kindness. The truth is, as I was growing up, I didn’t see much kindness in the world. People were treating others lousy, worthless, and, horrid. If more people had gratitude ther would be less murders, more love, and so much more faith in the world. Today we see people die, and are used to it. We hear about attacks and absolutely do nothing for the people that need it. Obviously, we need to find more of this stuff called
...transcends mere egoism and reveals how the individual itself is constituted by prior patterns of interaction. For Smith, the self is never disembedded or "unencumbered."38 Rather, as he put it, "their approbation necessarily confirms our own self-approbation. Their praise necessarily strengthens our own sense of our own praiseworthiness. In this case, so far is the love of praise-worthiness from being derived altogether from that of praise; that the love of praise seems, at least in a great measure, to be derived from that of praiseworthiness."39 This dialectic between the ego and the other finds expression in sympathy, which provides, by linking self-esteem to social praise, the psychological and social mechanisms undergirding social integration. "Nature," Smith argued, "when she formed man for society, endowed him with an original desire to please, and an original aversion to offend his brethren. She taught him to feel pleasure in their favourable, and pain in their unfavourable regard. She rendered their approbation most flattering and most agreeable to him for its own sake; and their disapprobation most mortifying and most offensive."40
...esult, the more directly one sees their personal efforts impact someone else, the more happiness one can gain from the experience of giving. Sometimes generosity requires pushing past a feeling of reluctance because people all instinctively want to keep good things for themselves, but once one is over this feeling, they will feel satisfaction in knowing that they have made a difference in someone else’s life. However, if one lives without generosity but is not selfish, they can still have pleasure from other virtues.
My journey of the process started with the PPI “Expressing Gratitude”. The task instructed to write down five things one is thankful for, each day, for a week. Wooh, Froh & Gerahty (2010) defined gratitude as a habit of noticing and being aw...
Sherman, Amy L. “Expectant Giving.” The Christian Century 116.6 (1999): 206. Academic OneFile. Web. 1 Nov. 2013.
When we sacrifice our time to help someone in need, whether it is a great or small need, we become a part of their life and can help alleviate heavy burdens. We feel good for looking outside ourselves and contributin...
For instance, it was an extremely sunny day in Ghana, West Africa, and I had gone out to the well to fetch water. It was while carrying the bucket of water on my way back that I noticed my neighbor’s children fighting over the insufficient amount of food that they had to share. My family and I were not rich but from what I saw, I knew that we were better off than other people I knew. I carried the bucket of water inside the house and came back outside to call the two youngest children that were fighting over the last grain of food. I shared my food my food with them and though it was not sufficient for all, feeding the younger ones alone was better than not helping any one of them at all. There was only little that I could possibly do but by sharing, I had helped them in a great way, even if it was just for the time being.