By Simon

“Blow, blow, thou winter wind, / Thou art not so unkind / As man’s ingratitude.” (William Shakespeare)

There is a nexus between generosity and gratitude. They are companion virtues. The most grateful people in the world are typically the most generous people. The most chronically selfish and self-absorbed typically live in a dungeon of ingratitude.

Selfishness is typically its own hell. The more selfish one is the more one gorges on the object of the selfishness, incapable of being satiated, always wanting more to fill a chasm that will continually run dry.

The selfish see the needs and wants of others but ignore them. The self-absorbed are so blind, that they regularly do not even see the needs and wants of others. We are all imprisoned to some degree in these cul-de-sacs. Gratitude and generosity are antidotes to both casts of mind and heart.

Mohandas Gandhi often advised that gratitude and generosity help break the spells of self-absorption and selfishness. He often explained that when he became obsessed with his own problems or gave in to self-pity, he would reach out to someone else in need or to the least fortunate in a community.

Such extension beyond himself gave him a greater sense of peace. His problems tended to loom less large and less important. Gandhi had little time for self-pity, especially by those who were more fortunate than others.

Self-pity is like a wound or sore that one incessantly picks at, making healing and new life impossible. A sense of gratitude – especially amidst the difficulties of life – and a heart of gratitude are balms that help cure the self-pity which we all sometimes indulge and even enjoy.

In 1884, California Governor and railroad magnate Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane Lathrop Stanford, lost their son Leland Jr to typhoid. He was their only child.

Consumed by grief but grateful for their son’s short life they agreed a memorial for him. The memorial was a university to which they deeded a considerable fortune including an 8,180-acre stock farm in Palo Alto, California.

The farm became the campus for a research university to be named the Leland Stanford Junior University. Today we know the institution as Stanford University, though it legally retains its original name.

Stanford’s endowment is now approximately $37.6bn. It has produced many noted graduates and Nobel laureates. Generosity or “paying it forward” most often blooms in ways we do not expect.

Those struck by grief after the loss of a child, spouse or parent often memorialise their loved ones through a scholarship, donation or the creation of an organisation for a designated purpose.

Many of those who create such memorials or tributes do so out of gratitude for the life of the individual they have lost. The deep sense of gratitude issues forth in a generous spirit.

Veterans who lose limbs in war and survive harrowing experiences often have a renewed sense of gratitude for life in general, and for family and friends. Intense gratitude often inspires extraordinary generosity.

The same is true for many who have survived or are living with certain diseases from cancer to HIV/AIDS. Many who have experienced life-altering accidents or the trauma of divorce or some other edge event, renew their spirits from the wellsprings of gratitude and generosity.

The hymn Amazing Grace was written by John Newton, a slave trader saved from death during a violent storm at sea. The song was a plea for mercy and written in thanksgiving. But it would still take some years and more conversion before Newton gave up slave trading.

The hymn is an expression of gratitude to God. Two of the stanzas from the iconic hymn comprise a prayer of gratitude:

“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,

That saved a wretch like me. ...

I once was lost but now am found,

Was blind, but now, I see. …

Through many dangers, toils and snares...

we have already come.

T’was Grace that brought us safe thus far...

and Grace will lead us home.”

In gratitude for surviving a monster storm, Newton’s new life became one of greater generosity and rectitude.

Too often, many of those afforded considerable privilege in life show little to no gratitude. They believe that they are entitled to what they have received in terms of financial or other privilege, though they have not worked for what they have been bequeathed by their parents or grandparents or benefactors.

One of the worst degrees of human ingratitude is that shown a parent by an ungrateful and selfish child. In Shakespeare’s King Lear, Lear seethes: “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is/ To have a thankless child.”

It is often alarming how commonplace it is in families to see how two children respond quite differently to parental generosity. One child may show enormous gratitude while the other becomes a posterchild for ingratitude.

Generosity and gratitude are virtues of empathy. They remove our blinders and our navel-gazing. The intimate companions lift our eyes and our hearts to a broader horizon and to our neighbour. The conceit of privilege and self-absorption typically blinds us to needs of others.

The story was told in this column previously of a 40-something bejeweled well-dressed woman driving a new luxury SUV, She breezily pulled into a clearly-marked handicapped-reserved parking space at a popular grocery store in western New Providence, perfuming the air with her sense of entitlement and self-importance.

After a few well-practiced stilettoed steps into the entrance of the store she was intercepted by a male store employee who politely informed her that she could not park in the reserved space. Seemingly afraid to challenge her, he told her that another female customer had complained.

The driver of the SUV exploded in rage. She loudly demanded how anyone dare complain about where she parked. She threatened to tell the other woman about, euphemistically, her derrière. Given the level of outrage, it seemed that the parking spot was reserved exclusively for the SUV driver.

Several time later this same lady pulled into an adjacent handicapped-reserved parking space at the very same store. As she alighted from her vehicle an attitude cum tune was in the air: “I’m more important than you and this SUV tell me it’s true. When I drive along the avenue I deserve more privilege than you.”

Not only had this lady not learned her lesson from a few months ago. She was broadcasting an object lesson about a lack of empathy and generosity. It is highly likely that this same lady would not be a generous individual.

Understanding the equation between generosity and gratitude is like studying a perpetual physics challenge or cosmological mystery or puzzle.

One knows some of the contours of the equation or the mystery but one never fully understands all of its dimensions. Yet one is awed by the various phenomenon produced by the equation. This constellation of gratitude and generosity is all around us and potentially within us all. 

• This is an updated version of a column previously published in 2017.