The great warrior Ashoka had conquered much of the Indian subcontinent for the Mauryan Dynasty about a quarter of a millennium BCE. He had won a great battle of Kalinga at the cost of one hundred thousand lives in the process creating an additional 150 thousand refugees and great suffering. We don’t begrudge our great conquerers enough for the suffering they cause. On the contrary, we admire them as masters of history. Don’t tell me you admire Genghis Khan! Balancing the suffering he had wrought against his gains, Ashoka reached a crossroads and embraced Buddhism. Buddhism teaches that want is the root of suffering.  It’s a pity that only after you’ve acquired all you strive for, if you ever reach a point, which rarely happens, you first see the hollowness of striving. It is common for famous actors and high earners, flush with fame and wealth, discover the worthlessness of their ambition which oftentimes leads to addiction and self destruction. The vast majority of us, never reach a state of sufficient material or personal satisfaction, and die in a  state of miserable struggle and want. For successful men like Ashoka, crossing over from an early phase of acquisitiveness to the next phase of giving back and good works is common, though a majority of successful humans remain forever in the acquisitive stage of development.

As a person who likes to dichotomize, in my own mundane world, I see two types, those who are thankful and those who are not. I suspect this is minimally learned but as with most things a genetic trait as well. Far more powerful than related traits of optimism v pessimism that so many make so much of, thankfulness is quite a bit more adaptive than dissatisfaction which leads to frustrated striving and depression. The person who is not thankful turns into an embittered, grumbling, curmudgeon that we naturally run from. This misbegotten attitude is infectious. Those are the folks who not only neglect to thank you for anything but feel a sense of entitlement. I’ve observed that a feeling of entitlement is inversely proportionate to how hard you’ve work for something. Give a kid a college education free of charge and he may throw it back at you. Make him earn at least a part of it, and he begins to see its value. It works the other way around as well. The congenital hard workers feel the least entitled. If there is a god who controls our fate, the thankless person denies His existence or even spits in His face. Forget about the next world. In this one, such persons will always be ungrateful for whatever services you give to them. Moreover they are unpleasant to be around.

Many are the parents who see this sense of entitlement manifest in their families as they gather together for a holiday of thanks. Practicing almost any religion, theoretically provides a pretext for thankfulness. Surprisingly, even among the religious there are many who are embittered those who merely go through the motions of ritual. Manytimes, atheists express more thankfulness than religionists, which is why I count thankfulness as a trait rather than as specific attribute of piety.

Whatever your religious background, the idea is to see something beyond your own personal wants. If you’re really practicing religion, and not just going through the motions of ritual, it should be harder for you not to appreciate what you have. Religion and the thankfulness that it encourages, looking up to and worshipping higher being(s), should serve as conveyance for transition of awareness beyond blind grasping groping acquisitiveness.