Thanks!

Recently, when me and a few my friends went to Himachal Pradesh, we happened to stop at many places to ask for directions. As I was the one sitting next to the driver, most of the time directions were asked by me from strangers on the road. Once, the person on the road or shop gave the directions I would simply ask the driver to proceed. But, my friend who was sitting behind, asked me to thank the person who gave us directions. I was pretty much hesitant. Through out the trip this happened many times and each time I asked for directions from a person, she would give me a reminder that I should thank that person and that too with a smile.

I was not entirely convinced by the fact that I should be thanking the person. I am the kind of person who takes it for granted that the it is the duty of people to give directions when asked whatever time of the day or night it may be. If he/she was unable give directions or expressed their inability by saying there were not aware of that place, I would be irritated. After all they belong to that place. Can’t they know even this? On our way back we stopped on a hilly road and I went to buy a cold drink from a shop. By now I was habituated and instinctively I said ‘Thank you’ after paying for my cold drink. The shop keeper was an old man and big smile filled his face. His smile somehow made me feel good. From then on, I made it a point to thank almost everyone who helped us in someway through out the trip. I even thanked my friend and her husband for arranging the trip.

Back here, I started pondering more upon it and I felt how ungrateful we all are. Whenever somebody does something for us, if the magnitude of the action is not huge or if it is not done without any expectation we never bother to say thanks. We either consider the person’s act as insignificant or we think it was his/her duty to do it. For example, when we go out for lunch with our friends, if we ask a friend of ours to pass on a water jug because it is not accessible from where we were sitting, we never bother to say thanks once he/she has actually passed it on. We just take it for granted. This has become our nature. If we all were to sit and list all the people we need to thank for the various things that they have done to us, I guess the list would be a huge one.

There is a lot in our life to be thankful for. Also, it is not necessary that we should say thanks only when a person does something to us without expecting anything in return. It can be said even in business dealings where the intention of the dealing is pure profit, as in the instance of the shopkeeper I mentioned before. He had set up a shop and he was selling cold drinks and not giving them for free. Most of us would argue that there is no need to thank him. But, there is still a reason. In that hilly road where very few people dared to set up a shop, he has set up a shop braving those extreme climatic conditions. If his shop were not there, even though I had enough money with me to buy a cold drink, I would have been thirsty till we reached some nearby town. So, there indeed was a very good reason for me to thank him.

It’s not just people we need to be thankful for, it can be circumstances, nature or animals which helped us directly or indirectly to understand some part of ourselves. Also, more than saying thanks, the feeling of being thankful is extremely important. Most of all we should be thankful to existence itself. How many of us are thankful that we have been bestowed with good organs, good limbs and a good lifestyle. Instead we go on cribbing about what we don’t have. If a question is put to people to list all the things they had, it’ll take them quite some time to make that list. But, instead if they were asked what they didn’t have, the answers will be quick and the list will be large. I guess we just need to change our attitude and our perspective the best time to do that is NOW.

Thank you for visiting this blog and reading till the end of this rigmarole!