Gratitude

I have a theory on gratitude.  You shouldn't be surprised.  The theory is that gratitude breaks Newton's third law..  Not every act that deserves gratitude receives it's just due. It can't, and often it shouldn't.  This presents a problem (gift pun alert.. moving on).  The problem is that the argument for human cooperation is often simplified down to something like "if you want to get presents from your friends on your birthday, then you need to get them presents for their birthdays".  Everything becomes a trade, where we expect to see the physical payoff of any and all effort.

Fact is, many gifts cannot be fully appreciated/reciprocated.  Great gifts require research and time and thought and sacrifice and things that can never be completely represented in the actual item.  There is something lost in the transaction.  Let's say the receiver of the gift grasps the full extent of the love put into the gift: how can they express their gratitude? It's impossible in that moment to show  understanding and appreciation.  Of course, it can be shown later, by returning the favor, but not all gifts provide that opportunity.  

This means that love is lost, or it appears so, if you're counting.  If you put a number on your sacrifice, and numbered the return you witnessed, it would not add up.  Humans dislike this, as a rule.  We like thinking that things balance, or even return a profit to us.  

I'm using gifts at Christmas as the analogy, but my theory is quite broader.  Let's take your parents.  Say you're an odd child, and you are aware of the sacrifices your parents make for you.  You can express your gratitude, but does the mere expression balance the equation?  The sacrifice, the "gift", is a one-way street, at least on the surface.  

Teaching.  If you go into teaching thinking that your effort and sacrifices will be matched by each of your students (the sum of your students?), you are not going to be teaching for long.  It simply does not work that way.  Teachers, like parents, have to latch onto any speck of gratitude they can detect, and cherish it until the next blue moon (and I'm saying this as a teacher who has had more appreciative students than most).  I'm by no means complaining.

This partially comes back to the seen and the unseen (and what doesn't?).  Despite my status as a cold-hearted economist, I'm not going to break down how parents care for their children because they've calculated the long run benefit to themselves, and, in my experience, teachers aren't just trying to make the world better in a vague sense, but trying to impact individual lives.  They sacrifice out of love.

I don't think I'm breaking new ground here; Christmas is a Christian holiday, and the idea is pretty fundamental to Christianity.  A sacrifice that can never be repaid.

  

The ground I am breaking is this: give love without expecting it to be returned in equal measure to you.  Do not attempt to compare what you give with what you get.  Once you start calculating and tabulating, you will become dissatisfied, because your powers of observation are too feeble to understand the true effect, and honestly, even the true effect doesn't always benefit you, the initial actor, equally.  The effect could be spread to other people at other places and times.

It's also a warning.  Don't expect the gratitude received to match the effort, and more urgently, do not depend on it, do not do anything solely for the thanks you expect to receive.  You have to keep your focus at all times.  If you find yourself justifying a sacrificial act with a tangible short-term payoff, you are setting yourself up for disappointment.  Imagine someone who works for a company for twenty years, stays on weekends, etc.  You have to know WHY you are doing that, and you have to know the company/people in it are incapable of thanking you for your service — their gratitude cannot be why you're working.  At best they will pause their day when you retire and share a cake.  It would be unfair to resent them for that; your expectations were unrealistic.

If we stopped our lives to fully appreciate every thoughtful and generous act, the person being thanked would have to thank those thanking, and thankers thanked for thanking thankees; it would soon lose all meaning.  The very idea of human progress is dependent on people doing good things for others and not getting the recognition they "deserve".

It's true that if you look at the world, you will see many people who seem to give all the time, and you will see many people who only take.  I think most people are in the middle, though.  The ones who expect a balance.  You should consider which you are.  Givers, don't give up.  Balancer? Think more broadly.  Taker?  Merry Christmas, you filthy animal