Gratitude For Those Who Oppose You?

Then — and here insert the sound of every great memory in your life being run in reverse through your mind — I experienced a rush of gratitude.

The city of Chicago is remarkable. The feat of human engineering, the artistry, the care.

That city is a symptom of a human condition, a condition that is rooted in some odd drive for aspiring for more than mere animal existences.

Death is seemingly not enough for human beings. Their lives must “matter,” must mean something.

That city is the sign of human striving for meaning.

If you have ever been moved at all at amazing architecture, the aesthetics of a city you love, is that not a sign that human beings have created a world where meaningful memories, experiences happen?

And get this…

These past experiences then make up those epiphany-like moments that spontaneously occur in some meaningless parking lot as you reflect on some other moment.

At that mundane moment, I felt gratitude for all the capitalistic, vile, ambitious aspirations that gave rise to Chicago.

Then I got to thinking of other people, people who are not moved by man-made objects, but instead are moved by nature.

Isn’t the very ability to appreciate nature as though it ITSELF was meaningful independent of people built on the fact that people have cities, horrid, human ambitiously created cities?

The city, with its materialization of human dreams and hopes, its “capitalism” and its “progress,” are baseline conditions for some people to love nature in a uniquely contemporary way.

The city, built as it is by corporations and greed, for many is a great sign of human ill-will, say for some Marxists and progressives to rail against.

They might say that nature is natural in a way that cities are not and that their love of nature is an authentic kind of love because it is absent of human aspirations, or of greed incarnate.

But yet, these people are not unaware of cities. They are contemporaries.

They are all too aware of the difference between cities and nature. If not for their experience of a city, then how is any meaningful comparison between the two drawn?

Isn’t the meaning that comes from devoting one’s life to advocacy of nature, to living more harmoniously with nature, or the meaning that comes from involving yourself in protest, in passionate argument, in pushing for anti-capitalist ideas, derived in part from the value of cities and human ambitions?

So why am I writing this?

I imagine an anonymous public audience reading this that may need to be reminded that even things we dislike often become conditions for the existence of the things we do like.

Today is seemingly an age of aggrievement. People feel opposed on all sides.

Is it possible that the real problem of feeling aggrieved by those who oppose us not only the fact that they oppose us, but that we have also somehow forgotten that their opposition fortifies our sense of purpose in striving for our hopeful, cherished ideals?

Rather than aggrievement, then perhaps we might notice thankfulness? As odd as that might sound.

Perhaps consider gratitude for that moment when you feel the rush of joy at nature, or the exhilaration of a city, or that renewed glow of a mundane moment in a parking lot.

That moment was made, in part, by that which opposes you.

If you’d like to try gratitude, but find it difficult to remain thankful.  Consider learning more about the script that operates your life.  Or, if you are wanting to take the next steps, sign up for free coaching call.