1949. Pity and Gratitude: Mortal Enemies

We have been blessed by Her Highness Heather at 1384. She beautifully clanged the pity bell, which enables me to ring the gratitude bell. Pity easily conquers women unless they fight back with the proper antidote, gratefulness. Thanks to Heather’s clear descriptions, many women may benefit because they are caught in similar situations.

As with all of us, a person’s attitude reflects their heart and self-pity gains prominence or dominance in the absence of gratefulness. If women are not grateful enough, they’re not happy enough. They look to blame others, which is quite natural but also the root of pity.

Whether you are an interested reader or buried in self-pity, please don’t take offense. It will only stall initiative to squelch the pitiful side of life with newfound gratitude.

I analyze the lady’s wonderfully descriptive comment as if gratitude is lacking in the heart of every woman, because it usually is to some extent or another. Her entire comment is broken and quoted in lower case; my response is bolded and bracketed.

• “Not having extended family is a huge problem today.” [You’re not grateful for what you do have? You generated a nice home and family. Can it not be made to be enough? As mother you are capable and able to make the world a better place with home-schooled children. Can mothers do better? As wife you are capable and able to keep husband’s nose to the grindstone of earning a living and remaining responsible for his family. Can you do better without him?]

• “My husband simply drives around listening to sermons and takes customers out to lunch for his job.” [Does listening to sermons improve or worsen his living a dedicated Christian life? You have time to diagnosis your problems and what’s wrong with your life. Are you stuck on that? Does it creep over into envy or jealousy for what he does daily instead of what he does long range to brighten the economic future for you, home, kids, and marital relationship? If you have time for those negative thoughts, can you convert them into positives?]
• “I am home schooling four children.” [Congratulations. How can you have the heart to continue, if you’re not grateful for the sterling characters you’re building into an extended family with you as future matriarch?]
• “He knows his job is so much easier than mine.” [Yes, easier because of experience, ambition, and gender attributes. Knowing he has the easier job compliments you with his gratefulness. You wouldn’t like it if he did your job and thus took yours away, right? Can you find gratitude in NOT having to do his job?]
• “I cannot be a good wife or mother without time to myself.” [Sure you can. You already are. How did you get where you’re at, if you aren’t both good wife and good mother? You found time to find pity. Can you find time to find gratitude?]
• “I consider time to myself to be cleaning without the children. I can’t even imagine having time for friends or reading a book or taking a bath without one of the children in it.” [I can’t tell you but you can figure out how to gain the private time you desire. You need only adopt one new habit. It will enable you to generate both imagination and time for yourself. I describe it below.]
• “Modern society has left women alone with only their inadequate husbands to turn to.” [If husband is inadequate, wife is usually responsible. She either married the wrong man, or the atmosphere she generates in home and relationship induces him to change in ways that make her ungrateful.]
• “Men just can’t run a house for even an hour like a woman can.” [Exactly, just as God designed, Nature endowed, and hormones continue to energize the sexes as distinctly different. A man’s sense of responsibility is broad enough to care for family. A woman’s sense of responsibility is specific enough to handle the details by squeezing in touches of female devotion here, there, and everywhere.]

The “fix” for all of your problems lies in one word—gratefulness. First, grateful for yourself. Second, grateful for your husband. Third, grateful for your children. Fourth, grateful for the life husband and children (and God if you are a believer) provide you.

If you expand your gratefulness in yourself, it will enable you to find gratitude both for the others and provide a more self-charmed life. It may sound too simple, but resolution requires renewed dedication to yourself. I suggest you adopt the practice, develop the habit, and make the most of this process:

• Commit to letting the following determine your bedtime. Arise each morning before everyone else and sit in front of a big mirror for 30 minutes. Demand that everyone honor your privacy and do so without complaint. Dedicate the first 30 minutes of your day to you talking to the mirror and generating your own feedback.
• Study yourself in ways you haven’t for a long time. Fix up, plan to fix up, and otherwise make improvements on everything you see in head and body. Every little improvement brings gratitude, so enable yourself to find new ways of improving your appearance. If you see need for a professional makeover, get it, but don’t give up your 30 minutes every day. Make it a lifetime habit, because it’s the tap root of happiness.
• Details are spread through other blog articles, particularly those cited in 1440 and the subject expands at 1721.

And you say: The price is too great! And I say: The consequence of pity is unhappiness. Pity and gratitude are mortal enemies. They can’t co-exist; pity kills happy.