Living in an era of increasing instant gratifications and decreasing gratitude…

I had recently visited a prosthetic clinic where I encountered an unique experience associated with gratitude. There was a young muslim girl, in her early twenties who was talking to her mother about some prejudice that they were facing somewhere. They were sitting in a sofa with their backs turned towards my back and so I could hear their conversation but really couldn’t see them fully. The young girl, full of positive energy was advising her mother to stop playing victim and look at things positively. Something about her stuck me. Looking at her, she looked like somebody from the lower strata of society but her positive attitude appeared really endearing. And then came the real moment of truth. From inside the clinic, an attendant came with a pair of prosthetic legs to be fitted on this young girl. Which is when, to my horror, I saw that there was nothing on her torso below her knees. She was used to wearing prosthetic legs and had come to the clinic to sort out some fitment issues. As I looked at her with admiration, I noticed that she was having some trouble with fitting it in and I offered to help her. She was a little embarrassed but after I insisted, she agreed to let me help her. After she was fitted fully, she gave a little demo on how she could even run with these prosthetic fitments and then headed off after thanking me for the help.

As one would imagine, this event had struck to me long after it happened and is still very fresh in my head. This is kid with a number of odds stacked up against her – a poor muslim girl with no legs. But she was special. She may not have a lot of the stuff that most of us but what she had in abundance was empathy, humility, cheerfulness and most importantly gratitude. She just refused to play victim or ask the inevitable “Why me?” question.

This set me thinking on the interesting times that we live in and which made this girl look even more special. We live in an era where instant gratifications are the order of the day. This coupled with an increasing trend of wanting to play victim especially among the more affluent of us as we grapple with the phenomenon of instant gratification or lack of it.

A lot of us (who form the middle class or upper middle class) from my generation in India have a lot to be thankful about. We were the beneficiaries of the Liberalization era of the early 1990s which opened up a huge plethora of opportunities especially on the professional front. We did accumulate (and some even splurged) a lot of wealth and fame at a rate disproportionate to the efforts and have progressed socially. However along the way, we picked up the habits of instant gratifications and the need to constantly play victim with artificial sob stories. Every simple thing that doesn’t go to plan makes us get overwhelmed and get into a comfort zone of cribbing and squealing “God, why me?” I happen to know a few folks are very affluent but will crib that they have nothing to crib about. There are folks who feel that they will lose their competitive or social edge if they stop playing victim. In fact, a batch mate of mine once quoted Andy grove’s famous quote “Only the paranoid survive” to justify his behaviour of “playing victim” all the time

The world can look bleak or beautiful depending on the level of humility and gratitude that one may have. It will further help us have empathy for those souls who are not as fortunate as us. As the title mentions, we want others to be grateful to us for what do to them and we want it to be instant. At work, everybody wants to promoted on the fast track (regardless of whether they deserved it or not and also whether they worked enough or not). In a family, everybody wants to be recognized or thanked for even the most trifle of contributions. There used to be a clear differentiation between what was a basic duty and wherever somebody went over and above the call of duty. This clear line is now becoming blurred in the form of these instant gratifications which is then leading to multiple side-effects

• The value of the gratification has eroded significantly
• The real recognition for where somebody went above the call of duty again gets diluted.

Gratitude has to be a very important part of our persona for various reasons. As one thanks the almighty or his more human benefactors for his/her success, one builds up a sense of humility and empathy which will keep a person very grounded. It removes the “I” from the equation. The Sanathana Dharma talks at length about the need to surrender oneself to the almighty in the quest for self-transcendence. I am sure that all other religions talk about the same. It is always important for us to reflect on the path that we have travelled and thank our benefactors and the not-so-helpful souls for the experiences which have shaped us into what we are today. There is a famous Tamil adage which when translated says that we should thank the wild thorns that pricked our feet as we wouldn’t have invented slippers otherwise.

One of the other reason for how we lose out on gratitude is primarily when we compare ourselves either with our peers who are relatively more successful and start playing the “victim game” once again. Their success blinds the fact that the other person might have worked hard for it or the fact they might have gotten lucky for once. After all, how many times do we reflect back in our life and remember how lucky we have been thus far. This is where the concept of Karma offers a compelling explanation. The Sanathana dharma says that whatever (good or bad) that happens to us is a combination of acts that have happened in the previous births, past actions in the current birth as well as the karma that is passed on from our parents/ancestors.  Of all the above, the only one which kind of stays in our current consciousness are the actions undertaken in this birth. Which is why it is important for us to remember the path that we have come and thank the almighty for the bouquets and brickbats which have created the experiences that have made us the person that we are. It is also the time to reflect on how good life has been to us and thereby feel happy. A lot of us do have a lot to be thankful about. At least I am.

That girl at the prosthetic clinic reminded me about how life could be wonderful if we focus less on ourselves and thank the almighty for bringing such people into our lives who will aid us remember the gratitude and not fall into the trap of instant gratifications.

“Gratitude makes sense of our past, bring peace for today and clarifies the vision for tomorrow”