Spiritual relationship help &
Building self esteem
Chicken Soup for the Soul cocreators Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen with Chris Karcher
ABC's Dr. Timothy Johnson,
Finding God in the Questions, and Chris
.
Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator, and Chris Karcher
Spiritual relationship help &
Building self esteem
Spiritual relationship help &
Building self esteem.
As the Wall Fell
I once read children want more, not because they don’t have enough, but because they have too much. While traveling through Germany, a young woman who grew up under communist rule in East Germany confirmed this theory. I asked her to compare life in Germany before and after the Berlin wall came down. I puffed up, expecting her to gush about the virtues of the west and our wonderful country.
Her reply surprised me. Yes, she was happy to live in a free society. But now that people have more, they want more, she explained. Girls who were happy with one doll are now dissatisfied with three because their friend has five. Grownups once content with a modest home strive for a bigger one. Her parents preferred life when the price of a loaf of bread was the same in every store in the country. Now they shop for bargains. She summarized the difference: as the wall tumbled, envy and ingratitude rose.
William Penn, a Quaker and one of the founders of Pennsylvania, called envy “the greatest of monsters as well as the root of all evil.” The Buddha described envy as “blind craving or desire” and the root of our suffering.[i]
A group of people who won the lottery participated in a study of the effects of winning on happiness five years later. The results indicated the lottery had no effect on happiness. People who were happy before winning were happy after. Unhappy people were still unhappy.
In a Nazi concentration camp, one man asked another how he could kneel and give thanks to God. The man replied, “I told God I am thankful I am not like them.”[ii]
Mind/body medicine physicians have observed patients who are grateful heal faster, are happier, and have an easier time making positive changes. Gratitude can positively affect your body chemistry and improve your body’s resistance to disease.[iii] A study on the effects of optimism on health reported heart patients weathered surgery better when they remained optimistic.[iv]
Gratitude is the result of internal condition, not external circumstance. It is accepting what is instead of dwelling on what is not.
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Copyright © 2003 by Christine N. Karcher. Chris Karcher is the author of Relationships of Grace, Amazing Things I Know About You, and Relationships of Grace Workbook. To order books and tapes, schedule Chris for speaking engagements, or subscribe to Chris’ newsletter, visit www.relationshipsofgrace.com, email order@relationshipsofgrace.com, or call 1-877-GET-GRACE (1-877-438-4722).
[i] The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations, ed. Frank Mead (Westwood, NJ: Fleming Revell, 1965) and The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion (Boston, MA: Shambhala, 1989), p. 96, quoted in Leonard Felder, The Ten Challenges (New York, NY: Three Rivers Press, 1997), p. 206.
[ii] As quoted on West Wing, 3 October 2001.
[iii] Louise Hay, Gratitude: A Way of Life (Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 1996), pp. 174, 175, 177, and 178.
[iv] Good Morning America, September 1999.