Lately, I have been thinking about gratitude. We usually treat grateful people like they were just born that way, as if it is some natural trait that only certain people have. But the more I observe myself (and other people), the more it feels like gratitude is not a trait. It is a skill. And if it is a skill, then anyone can learn it with practice.
I see gratitude as a kind of filter, a kind of lens. The situation stays the same, but the meaning shifts depending on how you choose to look at it. This is actually similar to something I read in "The Courage to Be Happy". The book talks about how our feelings follow the meaning we give to events. You are the one who has full control over how to interpret things, and then the emotion comes after. Gratitude fits perfectly into this idea. You do not wait until you feel grateful. You choose to see things in a way that makes gratitude possible.
For me, this shows up in very small things. Appreciating something I normally overlook. Noticing one thing that went right before I jump straight to what went wrong. Finding something useful even in a situation I did not like. None of this was natural for me. I had to remind myself to actually do it deliberately. Of course, sometimes I still forget. But whenever I remember, the whole situation feels different.
The interesting thing is that the more I practice it, the easier the skill becomes. Not because life suddenly improves, but because my attention gets trained to look at what is working instead of what is lacking. Exactly like the red car theory.
I am still far from mastering it, and as always, still trying to do better at this. But seeing gratitude as a skill, something I can get better at instead of something I am naturally good or bad at, has made it much more practical for me.