I watched a near-death experience story a moment ago where a person died temporarily and reported seeing heaven. In that heavenly realm, she was granted wisdom. First, she asked, “Why are we here?” The answer was, “To learn.” And she then asked, “What is our purpose?” and the answer was, “To love.” It was so simple but profound.
There exists an expression of love that can help us to learn. It’s called gratitude. Gratitude is love. And we can be grateful for everything, both the good and the bad. That’s because there’s a lesson intended to make us more beautiful within every sunny day or dark night of the soul.
With that said, let’s look at The Positive Trait Thesaurus‘ outline of how we can become more grateful, coupled with my interpretation. The cited text below is from the chapter called “Appreciative” within the The Positive Trait Thesaurus.
So, here are common traits of grateful people:
Grateful people “encourage others to let go of worries and negative emotions.” We never need to feel anger, jealousy, fear, worry, and resentment. But I believe there is always a need to receive these emotions from others with love. By returning these emotions with nothing but love, we become love—and our authentic essence is awakened. To achieve this state, we must learn to control our minds to experience no worry or negativity. Moreover, I believe we must let nothing but happiness and love fill our every thought, deed, and word.
Grateful people are “non-judgemental.” Suppose all the mistakes made in the world are treasures embedded with life lessons intended for us to grow into more appreciative, loving people. In that case, there is never a reason for judgment—only empathy and gratitude for everyone’s role in this world.
Grateful people believe “every living thing has a purpose.” No one’s life is meaningless. That means everyone’s life has value. Even a tiny bug’s life is imbued with meaning. The person on the street who leads a hard criminal life may be on a quest to discover God (love). I believe the purpose of all life is to love. But sometimes, we may get derailed from this purpose as life has many trials, some of which may thwart our journey toward that love. But these stumbling points are meant to be met with compassion. I believe everything and everyone has an ultimate purpose: the overcoming of trials and tribulations through love.
Grateful people see “mistakes as opportunities to learn and grow.” Even the most heinous errors are opportunities to learn and grow—and to become more inwardly beautiful. And every single being has made horrific errors. But it’s possible to fully detach from one’s past negatives to draw on the highest states: love and happiness. Simply let go of all hatred toward mistakes made by self or others. Favor instead pure love. After all, according to the near-death experience, we are all here to learn. And the end goal of that learning is to arrive at a place of love.
But how does gratitude help us learn? When we are grateful for the lessons in the traumas and the bliss—and thankful for our loved ones and adversaries—our inner world is filled with love. In other words, our inner world is safe, and we have more energy to devote to our goals in the external world. Better still, when we are grateful for everything that happens to us, we feel love. And remember, love is the purpose of our existence, according to the near-death experience. So, it can be assumed that gratitude toward everyone essentially fulfills our reason for existence.