Gratitude Is Missing

"None will improve your lot if you yourself do not."
– Bertolt Brecht

 Yesterday, Tony, Chris ,Madhu and I ran the trail. We met at the fire station and ran the Olmsted and  the Coffer Dam loop. But first, Tony ran from home and joined us at the fire station in Cool. Chris told them to go off ahead and that he would run with me. So Chris and I ran that loop also. During our run, I told Chris that I would run back to his house where my van was parked. I must’ve totaled somewhere between 17 ½ to   19 miles or so.

On the first, or New Year’s Day, Tony and I are running(10 mile) The Resolution Run in Auburn. I’m going to rest on Monday and Tuesday to determine if Sunday’s run was smart. For the past  three years, my finishing time on the January 1 , run has been steady and consistent. I’ll let you know if I can keep steady and consistent with my running time in 2014.

An article in the December 24, 2013 Wall Street Journal got my attention. The article had to do with rearing children with a gratitude attitude. In my experience, I find that gratitude seems to be missing in today’s world. One researcher equated gratitude with  a muscle. Philip Watkins, a psychology professor believes that by taking time to recognize good fortune, feelings of appreciation can increase. There have been a number of studies with  having parents model gratitude behavior. Further, psychologist Robert Emmons believes that you can’t give your kid something that you yourselves do not have. So they suggest, teach gratitude by modeling.

A  study with 1, 035 high school students found that those students that showed high levels of gratitude for such things as thankfulness for the beauty of nature and strong appreciation of other people reported having stronger GPAs, less depression and envy and had a more positive outlook than less grateful teens. The study also showed that those students who strongly connected buying and owning things with success and happiness reported having lower GPAs,  depression, and more negative outlook.

 Unfortunately, another study that followed  355,000 high school seniors from 1976- 2007 found that the desire for lots of money has increased markedly since the mid-1970s, while willingness to work hard to earn it has decreased.

Of course, this statistic is not at all surprising, but is a sad state of affairs for young people and others in our country. In the old days, when I grew up, one way to earn money was to attend college in order to put yourself in a better position to open  more doors  for a career choice. Obviously, something negative has happened, in my opinion , with parental baby boomer child-rearing. What do you think about the changing attitude of gratitude?

Anyways, keep moving, smiling, laughing, bonding, deep breathing,  loving and teach gratitude in the process.