Attitude of Gratitude

Mara here:

"Attitude of gratitude."

I think this is a phrase that I first heard from author Wayne Dyer. In my neverending search for explanations for why we feel the way we feel, I read a lot of self-help books. And Wayne Dyer's are among those I enjoy. I don't agree with everything he writes, but I find his general philosophy on life appealing.

And he's funny. I'm always a sucker for some self-deprecating humor.

His idea of having an attitude of gratitude resonated with me. Because for most of my life I had an attitude of "why is this happening?" I often felt like the universe was very hard on me. I think most young people feel this way. My 17-year-old daughter definitely feels this way.

So when my daughter's car was crashed into while parked in her school's parking lot, the words, "why me?" came out of her mouth several times that day.

The car was hit hard. She had stayed late after school for a study session and got a phone call from a friend saying, "your car was just totaled."

She rushed to the parking lot, and indeed, her car had been hit very hard from the back side. It was hit so hard that it was pushed into the car next to it, doing extensive damage to that car.

I won't go into how stupid it was that some teenage kid was driving recklessly in a parking lot full of high schoolers walking to their cars. If nothing else, it was a miracle that nobody got hurt.

But while the two other cars involved in the accident (the one that was at fault and the one that was hit by my daughter's car) were both drivable, my daughter's car had to be towed. The damage was pretty extensive. The entire back of the car had been destroyed and there was possible structural damage.

Was the car totaled? We don't know. It's at the repair shop and we will find out soon.

But it was shocking.

I drove out to the school (about a forty minute drive) as soon as I heard what happened. I called a tow truck on the way and about an hour later I had my daughter safely in the car next to me as we headed home.

And then the flood of emotions hit her. And she was distraught. It wasn't just her car, but being the spotlight of the spectacle had drained her emotionally. Later that evening, she had fits of anger and frustration. And she felt victimized. She felt as if the whole thing was unfair. She was worried that the car was totaled which would put into question how we would pay for a new car.

Not having ever had a car totaled, neither my husband nor I could really answer any of her questions about what would happen. The only thing I know is that insurance doesn't just replace your car.

This news angered her. Her car was her 16th birthday present. And it was exactly the kind of car she had planned for. The thought that we might somehow not be able to replace her car was too much for her already drained emotions.

She spiraled into a fit of "why me?" And when I didn't respond the way she wanted me to, she got angry at me.

I knew most of her frustration and anger was just her venting the pent up steam from the day. And I also knew that she was simply too young and inexperienced with actual hardship to have perspective.

I'm sure there are many kids who would have had a more reasonable reaction. But my daughter is, um, fiery. I don't know how else to explain it. She is passionate. And she feels very strongly about things. Right or wrong, however it is she feels, she feels it 100%.

And the fact her car was damaged and that we might have to actually partially pay to replace the car made her livid. And the fact that the whole event had not made me livid was making her even more upset.

But I just couldn't get myself worked up.

All I could feel was grateful that she hadn't been hurt. And the circumstances surrounding the whole event filled me with gratitude. I was definitely having an attitude of gratitude moment.

Is it incredibly frustrating that a kid rammed into my daughter's car and her car might be totaled while his car was relatively undamaged? Yes. Is it frustrating that the kid who was being reckless is incredibly wealthy, so there will likely be little or no consequences for him? Yes.

But there's so much for me to feel grateful for. My daughter wasn't in the car. Nobody was injured. There were school faculty and campus police quickly on site to gather witness statements and control the scene. We have AAA and insurance, so getting the car taken care of is not a hardship. When I arrived on the scene, my daughter had some wonderful friends who had stayed with her until I got there to make sure she was okay. I don't have to work, so I was home and able to get to quickly get to my daughter. I don't have to work so my car is available for my daughter to drive while her car is being fixed. If her car is not fixable, we will be able to deal with it.

And I reminded her that "bad' things happen to people all the time. A truck hit my car while I was literally not moving, waiting at a stoplight, and the insurance company wasn't able to prove it wasn't somehow partly my fault. My husband was once rear-ended twice in one day. The man who hung a door for us had his house burn down in the fires last fall.

Unfortunate things happen all the time to people.

All in all, for me, it was a reminder of how lucky we are. And it wasn't a feeling that took time to ponder. I just simply felt it when I heard she hadn't been in the car.

And, no, maybe she won't end up with the car she started with. But she will have a car. We can afford to make sure she gets something nice. And in the meantime, even though she doesn't like driving my car, she can drive it as much as she needs.

We are so lucky. I am so grateful.

Here are some questions I asked my mom about this:

I'm sure there must be Buddhist lessons that directly relate to being grateful during times that seem like a hardship.

The Buddha didn't talk directly about gratitude, but in the first noble truth, he did talk about some of the hardships we face in life, They include, aging, illness, not getting what we want, getting what we don't want, and losing what we cherish.

When I reflect on this list, I see that all of us will, indeed, have to go through these unpleasant experiences. Your family definitely did not get what you wanted when that kid hit Malia's car...and she may have lost something she cherished if it can't be fixed. 

This list of the Buddha's contains hardships that come with the human condition. That being the case, it's wise to do what you did—put this particular hardship in perspective. That left you with a feeling of gratitude, mostly for all the terrible things that didn't happen (like kids getting hurt).

There's a story I tell in my book, How to Be Sick, that I think would be helpful here.

Country music singer and songwriter Rosanne Cash was being interviewed on NPR's Terry Gross. Cash had been forced to put her career on hold for several years because she had to have brain surgery for a rare but benign condition. Terry Gross asked her if she ever found herself asking "Why me?" Cash said no, that, in fact, she found herself saying, Why not me? since she had health insurance, no nine-to-five job that she might lose during her long recuperation, and a spouse who was a wonderful caregiver.

That's the story. It's helped me to stop asking "Why me?" all the time. What happened to Malia and your family could happen to anyone. Like you, I'm so grateful that no one was hurt. I'm so sorry about the hassle you have to go because of it though.

Have you had moments like mine, where on the face of it things seemed very bad, but you were able to feel gratitude regardless of the misfortune?

I've had this happen many times, especially when you and your brother were growing up and an incident such as just happened to you took place.

I work on developing this attitude of gratitude in regards to my chronic illness. I've even posted pieces where I make a list of things to be grateful for even though, if I had my choice, I wouldn't be housebound. I can be grateful that, because of being at home, I don't get stuck in traffic jams. And I'm grateful that I don't answer to an alarm clock. These are little things, but they make me feel better about the limitations in my life.

What is your advice for people, like your granddaughter, who generally default to feeling angry when they feel like things "aren't fair"?

The Rosanne Cash story from my book could just as easily have gone here as an answer to this question. 

One of the most helpful things I've learned is that life isn't always fair. Life just happens. Sometimes it feels fair to us and sometimes it doesn't. Getting angry when it doesn't isn't going to make it fair. It's only going to make us feel worse.  

Accepting that life isn't fair has relieved me of a tremendous burden—the burden to expect it to be fair. When I dropped that expectation, most of my anger went along with it. The result is that I feel so much better and so much calmer about my life.