Ever feel grateful to realize that there is someone less fortunate than yourself? Someone less beautiful? Some who has even less money? More debt? Greater pain? More grief? Etc?
Have you even perhaps tried the exercise of thinking of those less fortunate to feel better? Telling yourself that this makes you grateful? Perhaps teaching your children this exercise? Maybe you learned this exercise at home from parents or grand parents yourself?
Have you ever considered why this may feel better?
Being grateful that there are those less fortunate than yourself is a form of “misery likes company”.
Being grateful in this way is in fact a form of misery. An insidious form of expanded misery that requires others be miserable. A multiplicity of misery.
This is a form of misery we feel is alleviated by finding other miserably resonating souls.
The law of attraction brings like people together. And, it brings additional similarly resonating circumstance into our lives.
Focus on misery and those more miserable brings what into your life do you thing?
Ever have an office Sad Sack who comes in with a cloud over their head and goes around telling their tales of woe attempting to find people to share misery with?
Notice how they light up when they find someone who shares a misery? Perhaps even they get into a “my misery trumps your misery” kind of discussion?
See how they glow a bit brighter in this… until they trail off, looking for more misery for next time?
The way to be truly happy, is to be grateful for what we have in life. That is for what we have in life inside of us. Right now. Not for what we do not have. Not for what we have more than others. Not for what others have or don’t have.
For what we have in our lives, right now.
To ever experience true happiness and joy, we must be truly present and truly grateful for what we have, right now.
If we are hungry, we might be grateful that we have senses and have lived as long as we have. If we have sight in one eye, we might be grateful that we have memories of seeing with two eyes, and that we can enjoy the gifts and beauty of sight with one eye.
The alternative is to try to be grateful that we are less hungry than someone else, who we assume is miserable. Or, that we try to be grateful that the man with no eyes, would call us king.
Yet, can you see, how the person who is hungry, if they are grateful that they were alive, would in fact be happier than we? Or, that the man who was blind, might be grateful that they enjoy sublime pleasures on hearing things like crickets (not better than us by the way, this being akin to misery likes company).
So, this premiss of being happy to find someone that is “less fortunate” than we also requires they be miserable for having less…
For, if the person had less than we, and was grateful and happy none the less, all we really need to learn is that in their true gratitude lies their happiness.
Thus, we do not need to find those less fortunate. We need only learn to be grateful for our lives, such as they are.
Peace and love,
Yucel