GRATITUDE.

  Gratitude is born out of fear.

We feel grateful for something or someone since we see the value of it, and we are afraid of losing it . so we appreciate it while we have it.

Since we were kids, we were shown the value of something that serves us through comparison. If we refuse to eat food, our parents will remind us of those who starve to death. If we deny wearing a jacket in cold weather , we get reminded that we will lose our health. We didn't have the luxury to not believe them . We saw the probability of that comparison becoming our reality. 

And we become afraid we might lose things just for merely not seeing their value. So we start feeling grateful as a way to protect our possessions somehow , as if they will stay with us longer since we appreciate it. And if we lose them, we won't feel as bad.

 Sometimes, the fear doesn't get introduced to you in your childhood but rather in your journey of life. You had something that was very significant and it had a big benefit on your life but since it became a part of your routine it started to be pegged as ‘normal’ or 'usual’, this something could have been anything: a friend ,a job, health...

Suddenly, the mockery of fate occurred. It took that thing away from you . You owned something, and then you lost it. that involvement of the events will leave a sense of emptiness behind it, and you realised how precious it was, so you regret not appreciating it properly once you had it .

 Fate could possibly strike again , but this time, it will be in your favour. It will make amends for what it took and return in it to you. Consequently, you hoard it in the view of the fact that now you see how dear it was.

As you are afraid of losing it, again.

There is another situation in your journey of life that you might have come across. It is when you feel grateful for something you don't even have yet . How so?

You aspire to achieve something . It doesn't matter what it is, but the point is, you put all your effort into aiming for it. Doubt is a natural sentiment that creeps into humans when they are the most desperate for something. So you promise to feel grateful once you have it, a way of trying to attract it to you somehow . You see the real value of that thing since it isn't yours yet. So you promise to appreciate it, unlike the other things in life that you once possessed or now possess.

You are afraid of not reaching it, so you feel grateful despite not having it.

As I see it, those who have everything . And never aim to establish something or have never lost anything , are less likely to feel fear, therefore they don't happen to be grateful. 

Unless they retain empathy and the ability to see from other's perspective, and the imagination to put themselves in others' shoes.