By Robert E. Quinn
I met with a young woman who worked with us last year and is now in a doctoral program in another state. She had much she wanted to tell me. At one point, she spoke about some negative things that happened to her. Later she told me she was keeping a gratitude journal. When she told me this she returned to the negative events and said, “It is so amazing, I look at those negative things and I see the value in them and I feel like everything that happens to me is part of one big whole. I have never experienced anything like it before.”
As I meet more and more people who keep gratitude journals, I am getting used to statements of how the process alters life outlook. There are at least two themes that I notice. The first is an increased awareness of interdependence. Increased positivity makes us more aware that we are not independent, we are interdependent. We are part of “one big whole.”
Second, the whole we are a part of is not static. It is a dynamic, growing system. We are surrounded by flowing events, flowing relationships, and flowing conversations. Normal thinking analyzes the flow and builds static categories. The static nature of social life is a social construction. When positivity opens us up to more integrative and dynamic thought processes, a transformation takes place. Our appreciative eyes see all, both good and bad, as platforms to growth and possibility. As this outlook changes our normal assumptions we are more likely to operate from the growth mindset.
Digging into the notion that ‘we are part of one big whole’ returns me to the notion of holistic and holographic thinking, seeing how “the whole is contained in each of its parts.” Each of us is like a drop in the Ocean, but we can see our significance from different levels. If we don’t see outside the drop, lose our connection to the ocean, we become lonely and alienated. If we concentrate on our limitations, our emptiness, we can become sick from envy and worry. At stage three, we see how our drop is better than others and can be trapped by our arrogance and greed. If we throw ourselves into a bowl of water, we mingle with others and lose the feelings of separateness in our hugging one another. At the fifth level, we can notice our likeness to the Ocean. Without all the drops, the Ocean doesn’t exist. The Ocean exists in each and all of us. There’s the joy of life, the deepest kind of Happiness.
It is very true that when you are grateful and have a positive outlook in life you’ll become open minded and would see the BIG and clear picture of this life. You will appreciate more of life and thank God of sending you here on earth. You would feel more of God’s love and see your true purpose of being here. There is a song in my mind and it goes like this: Count your blessings, name them one by one. And it will surprise you of what the Lord has done. I know it is true… you’ll see how it will change your whole character and even your whole life. You will begin to have a positive “aura” and influence others to become good and better.