Without Gratitude, You Cannot HAVE Anything

If I offered you a visit to my beautiful lake house, would you want to go?

Why would you want to go?

If I told you that my lake house had been in a big fire and was still unlivable at the moment, would you still want to visit it?

You probably wouldn’t.

Q: Why would you not be interested in visiting a burned-down lake house?

A: You wouldn’t be interested in visiting a burned-down lake house because you wouldn’t be able to ENJOY the lake house. You wouldn’t be able to APPRECIATE it. There would be nothing to be GRATEFUL for.

I think we can agree that “having” something is not about possessing a title to its legal ownership. A burned-down lake house is no lake house at all, regardless of who’s name is on the deed, whoever it is does not “have” a lake house right now.

We set fire to things, people, and experiences in our lives all the time, not with a match but with a lack of gratitude.

This is a convoluted and, yet, very zen-like way of making my point.

Let’s take it a step further.

Let us say that there are two identical twins. Let’s say that one of the twins was gifted a trip to visit the Muir Woods in California, home of the world-famous Redwood trees. We will call them the Traveling Twin. Let’s say that the other twin was not able to go to the Muir Woods. She had to stay home. We will call them the Homebound Twin.

The Homebound Twin did not experience the Redwood trees. They did not see the redwoods with their eyes. They did not get to touch the redwoods with their hands. They did not get to smell the natural scents of the Muir Woods. The Homebound Twin did not “get to” experience the aspects of the Muir Woods. Therefore, the Homebound Twin was unaffected by the Muir Woods. They did not “have” that experience. This is simple enough.

The Traveling twin also did not experience the Redwood trees. Let me tell you why. Although their body was physically in the Muir Woods, when the time came to look at the famous Redwood trees, their mind was on something else. So, even though their eyes were facing the trees, they hardly noticed them. The Traveling Twin also does not know what the trees felt like. Although the Traveling Twin put their hands on the trees, they were not mindful when doing it. So, they didn’t take a moment to really feel the bark on their hands. Because they didn’t appreciate the bark on the trees, the Traveling Twin has about the same experience in touching the trees as the Homebound Twin. The Traveling Twin also does not know what the Muir Woods smells like. Although they were physically in the woods, they never stopped to take a deep breath and examine the smells coming into their nose.

Neither twin “had” the experience of being in the Muir Woods. One twin missed it because they physically were not in the woods. The other twin missed it because they did not appreciate it when they were physically there. Is this not true?

If you went to the Muir Woods with a bag over your head, stood in the woods for two minutes, couldn’t see the redwoods, couldn’t smell the redwoods, couldn’t feel the redwoods, would you tell people that you had that experience? Of course, you wouldn’t. But, we have this kind of experience all the time without knowing it.

Without gratitude, you can’t HAVE anything.

Gratitude can be described as wanting something you already have. Appreciation and enjoyment are similar. All of these words are ways to describe the experience of CHOOSING to like something. It’s that choice that I will be talking about here. That choice will affect your interaction with just about anything in the world.

Our ability to “have” (almost) anything is directly related to our ability to enjoy/appreciate/be thankful for that thing.

You can begrudgingly enjoy a massage. Massage provides physical sensation. Nerves are pushed and pulled in ways that feel good. That’s physical pleasure. Most everything else is a matter of taste. You need to prefer something in order to enjoy it. You have to choose to like it.

You can apply this to even the most opulent treat. Without gratitude, you wouldn’t be able to “have” a 200-foot mega yacht, even if you had all the money in the world. It’s not about money. It’s about your ability to actually HAVE it.

Let me explain. Nobody buys a mega yacht for any practical reason. Nobody is commuting to work in a mega yacht or buying groceries with a mega yacht. The only purpose for a mega yacht is enjoyment. A yacht is not dish soap. Nobody needs a mega yacht. The only purpose of a mega yacht or in buying a mega yacht is enjoyment.

Enjoyment is a choice, and so is gratitude and appreciation.

If you don’t choose to enjoy your 200-foot mega yacht, you won’t enjoy your 200-foot mega yacht. Enjoyment is never automatic. It may not happen.

If a mega yacht exists exclusively to be enjoyed, and if you chose not to enjoy it, then you don’t have a mega yacht at all. You are not receiving the enjoyment a mega yacht was intended to produce. I would call this a titanic waste of money. The same can be said about a trip to the Muir Woods if you don’t appreciate the trip.

Apply this to your meals. On any given night, provided you are not affected by celiac disease, you can eat a bowl of oatmeal for dinner. A bowl of oatmeal, made at home, can’t cost more than $1.00, even if you bought it at Whole Foods. That bowl of oatmeal would fill and nourish you and serve as an adequate dinner. Compare that to the night when you went to a restaurant for dinner and paid over $20.00 for that night’s dinner.

Why did you pay 20 times more than you had to pay for dinner on that night?

You could say that it was because you wanted more nutritional value but then you would be met with a smirk from me. We routinely pay 10-20-30 times more for things to ENJOY the pricier versions of those things. In the case of your restaurant meal, you valued the fancy meal to be worth the money. You were probably right, depending on what you add to your oatmeal.

Now, if when eating the restaurant meal, you were told very bad news, this would affect the economics of the situation because, in that case, you wouldn’t be enjoying the meal any longer. The bad news might make it impossible for you to enjoy it. On that night, you would have overpaid drastically. You paid a premium for the enjoyment you never received. With this in mind, if you ever need to tell someone bad news, either pay for their meal or make them oatmeal at home. There’s no reason to add financial insult to bad news injury.

But, is receiving bad news the only reason we miss an experience? The most common reason we miss experiences is our lack of appreciation and gratitude for the occasion. We lose things because we are not mindful.

It’s also important to know that the decision to enjoy something is not a one-time decision. Our gratitude for something needs to be reaffirmed in order for us to continue to receive that thing’s benefits. Let’s get back on our 200-for mega yacht and assume that you did, in fact, truly and passionately appreciate your mega yacht, for the first two years of ownership. In those two years, you would have PAID to enjoy the mega yacht (again, that’s all you can do with a mega yacht) and would have received its enjoyment. But, if you then stop enjoying it in year number three, it would be as if you had lost the mega yacht. You would no longer “have” the enjoyment you had paid for. If you think about it, it would be like selling the boat for free. You would be giving up the mega yacht by no longer enjoying it but you wouldn’t receive any money back.

This prism works on almost anything that doesn’t affect the physical. A bottle of whiskey will intoxicate someone, even if they don’t appreciate it. A roller coaster will make someone’s stomach churn, even if they are a curmudgeon. But, the world of physical sensation is relatively small compared to all of the other things in our lives that depend on appreciation for their value.

You could have the best dog in the world but if you don’t appreciate that dog, then you don’t really have that dog. You could live in the world’s most beautiful home but, if you don’t appreciate that home, you don’t really have that home. You could be living the best life imaginable but if you don’t appreciate that life, then you don’t really have that life.

Think about this. Apply it to your day.

This can help you in conserving your resources. If you aren’t going to appreciate a new item or trip or meal, then don’t spend your money on it. It will only be a waste. You won’t be receiving that item, trip, or meal anyway.

This can also help to make you immediately wealthy and lucky. All you have to do is be grateful for everything you see around you. Through appreciation and mindfulness, you can become immediately wealthy by choosing to enjoy everything you have in your life.

You’re welcome.

Burak Uzun is an award-winning writer and a Certified Meditation Teacher. He has received thousands of hours of training and hands-on experience in guiding individuals with social and emotional challenges.

Burak Uzun also co-wrote a feature film called Team Marco, which was featured in over fifty film festivals around the globe and was distributed by Samuel Goldwyn Films.

Please feel free to reach out to Burak here.

Learn more about SOCA LLC and Burak’s classes here.