Dear Readers,
‘Paddle Your Own Canoe’ evoked a very good response. It resonated with many who related the idiom to their own experiences.
Chandrika Raghu fondly recalls how her mother Muthamma (whom we all knew) was the epitome of self-reliance and how she paddled her own canoe even when the tides of life were choppy.
KBR Murthy wrote to say that when he was at Lucknow he knew of a lady whose three sons were in top jobs and yet she chose to live independently, cooked her own meals and lived life on her terms.
Shailaja narrated a remarkable episode from her own life when, with fierce determination, she refused to take advantage of her father’s influential position to gain admission to a prestigious school but chose a school of her own preference and went on to become an accredited dentist.
Ashvini has sage wisdom to share. He says as we get older we must learn to paddle our own canoe and not be dependent on our children who have their own canoes to paddle.
A P Thomas says: “I was impressed by reading the 69 unsung modern-day heroes. The remarkable feature of each one of them is that they paddled their canoes upstream against the current. ‘Ekla chalo re’ should be inculcated from childhood so that in adult life the person is independent.”
November 25th marked Thanksgiving Day in the US. It dates back to 1621 and commemorates a harvest celebration attended by Native Americans in Plymouth. The Wampanoag tribe had helped the settlers survive the previous winter. In Canada, it dates back to 1578 and is celebrated on the second Monday of every year.
There are other countries too where Thanksgiving is celebrated to coincide with harvesting. They are: Liberia, China, Germany, Grenada, Japan, Norfolk Island, South Korea and Vietnam.
Though in India we celebrate the harvest festival, we do not call it Thanksgiving. Nevertheless, we as a nation are grateful to the farmers who toil in the sun and grow crops that sustain us. I think the Indian harvest festival which is celebrated in different parts of India should not be an occasion for thanksgiving but for expressing our gratitude. But what differentiates gratitude from being thankful?
🤲🏼 Count Your Blessings
All of us say ‘thank you’ in the course of conversation and at different points in time. Often we say ‘thank you’ mechanically and as a matter of social etiquette which as a result may sound hollow and lack sincerity. We utter those words not out of heartfulness but out of mindfulness.
Heartfulness is by itself a vast subject but I am using that word here to mean a deep emotion or a heartfelt expression of sincerity.
We say often that we are thankful, but if one were to look at the ordinary dictionary meaning of ‘thanks’ one would realise that we are being conscious of a favour or a benefit that we received from someone. The plain dictionary meaning of ‘thanks’ is ‘expression of gratitude’ but in real life, we mouth the word ’thanks’ instinctively to comply with social norms. It does not emanate from the heart. It has more to do with ‘good manners’.
Being grateful is to be appreciative of favour or assistance. Appreciation is a combined effort of the heart and the mind (more of the heart if I may say so) and so is being grateful. The word gratitude is derived from the Latin word gratia, which means grace, graciousness, or gratefulness (depending on the context). In some ways, gratitude encompasses all of these meanings. Gratitude is a thankful appreciation for what an individual receives, whether tangible or intangible. Thank you is an utterance but gratitude is an experience.
If someone opens the door for you or does some routine action, you instinctively say ‘thank you’ as a conscious response. If you forget to say ‘thank you’ the person who did a favour would mutter under his breath, "Oh! What manners, not a word of thanks!" Being conscious of a favour prompts you to thank that person and being appreciative of that favour makes you grateful to that person.
In our lives many times someone would have stood by us or bailed us out of a difficult situation or played a role in shaping our future. These instances are etched in our memory and when we recall those moments we relive the emotions that overwhelmed us with gratitude. We continue to be grateful. I came across a quote that said,
“Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.”
‘Thank you’ is said in the moment and is normally not relatable to what has happened. If you continue to remember and appreciate what one did for you, you are being grateful. This is precisely why gratitude is also relatable to a loss and not just to a gain. I lost my purse full of dollars in Hawaii and even today I am grateful to the family who turned it in, restoring to me the joy of that outing.
“Thank you!” may well be said sarcastically or angrily. I have a rich experience of this. My wife tells me to bring something on my way back from the office and when I confess to forgetting she says, “Thank you very much!” What follows that Thanksgiving is something I would rather keep for another post.
I have seen people slamming the phone down with “Oh! Thank you very much”. The caller who had been invited for dinner forgot about the invitation and after he had finished eating he called up to say, “Sorry, I forgot and had my dinner.”
Some use ‘thank you’ in a dismissive way. Like a person tells the other, “Thanks for the offer to give me a ride, but I prefer to walk.” “Thanks, but no thanks” is another expression that is used when you are offered something and you thank the person for that offer but do not accept that offer.
Some are way too frank. You give a person a gift and he says, “Oh! I already have it, but thanks anyway.” This person is neither conscious of the good gesture nor is appreciative of your effort to buy him something.
Some people do not consider it obligatory to say ‘thanks’. They feel entitled to what they receive. They are not conscious of what is being given. It is better not to expect such people to say ‘thanks’.
When I was very young I took everything for granted and I cannot remember having said thank you for anything given to me. I realised this only when I started attending high school and two Brits who taught us English also taught us to say ‘thank you’ not so much as an expression of gratitude but as a part of good manners.
“Thanks for nothing” is an American expression which people use when they are annoyed with someone who has failed to do what was expected of that person. If you share something in confidence and if that confidence is breached, you could tell that person, “I can’t believe you let me down. Thanks for nothing.”
Gratitude Journal is mentioned by many as a means of writing down the favours received from others not just to memorialise them but to remind yourself to look for opportunities to return that favour to anyone you think requires it. ‘One good turn deserves another’ is truly worthy of emulation. Gratitude triggers a positive chain reaction that can prompt us to help anyone in need. We should encourage our children to write a gratitude journal. It would be very interesting to see what and how they write.
Let us all thank our stars and be grateful to all those who helped us through the pandemic particularly the healthcare workers and caregivers. Let me end with a verse and a quote.
Be thankful that you don't already have everything you desire.
If you did, what would there be to look forward to?
Be thankful when you don't know something,
for it gives you the opportunity to learn.
Be thankful for the difficult times.
During those times you grow.
~Anon.
“It’s not happiness that brings us gratitude. It’s gratitude that brings us happiness.”
~Anon.
Having been a people manager all my life I have realized that a simple thank you to the team is many a times even bigger than financial emoluments. It is such a motivator for many of us in the corporate world.
The most endearing experience is when your staff come up and says thank you for having guided them either for personal development or career growth.
Here's one I received today from a staff member.... Touching the sky. @MRK. Your support and guidance is bearing fruits now, not only for the team but personal development. You are like a producer behind the scenes, only the artist can be known more than the producer, but the producer produces what make the artist known. We thank you MRK.
These moments of thanking each other are priceless!!
I agree, 'thanks' is many times used quite flippantly, as more an expression of good behaviour and culture, rather than an outpouring from the heart. But still, the mere word thanks when expressed sincerely does wonders to the giver and the receiver.
Although it was never a common Indian practice, this Western import is now more common, at least in urban areas. Whether said casually or with great feeling, it turns us into a more considerate and genteel people. Who can complain?
And yet, often the biggest thanks are the ones best left unsaid, the silence speaking louder than a thousand words. What do you say to someone to whom you owe your very existence? Like someone who saved your life in a near death accident (I am a living example of one who may not have been around but for a faithful friend). Or to your mother who gave you your life in the first place? No words would suffice, and indeed no words were expected.