In a time when narcissistic self-inflation is on the rise, ingratitude has become the greatest fault in someone’s heart. People use it as an excuse to fall prey to their petty vices. They use it as a pretext to put on display the emptiness of their pretended honour and loyalty.
You can look at ingratitude as an offence that is greater and more despicable than revenge, since revenge only returns evil for evil, while ingratitude returns evil for good. Someone who is ungrateful will rarely praise or forgive your actions, regardless of how much good you do. In his microscopic heart, he collects only resentment and a sense of “humiliation” of having been helped by someone else. This petty feeling often turns into hate and betrayal.
Never EMBRACE INGRATITUDE
Pay attention, friend, to your own behaviour and refuse to engage in such a manner of conducting yourself. Even though, at times, you will feel the pull to such a practice, understand that the cure for such a hurtful way of acting is to embrace gratitude. Simply thankfulness expressed in action, recognition of someone’s kindness that never keeps score.
We all desire others to recognise our acts of generosity. The silent hunger of repaying a good deed with a good deed that you have in yourself is all so natural. But sometimes, a simple desire and a silent hunger won’t suffice to face the ingratitude in the world around you.
FACE BOLDLY THE INGRATITUDE OF THE WORLD
Understand, friend, that you will never rise to the dignity of true living until you find the boldness that dares to face ingratitude unscratched. Show the courage to pursue your course unchanged when others meet your good actions with thankless arrogance.
It is hard to see those who were by your side in the days of your prosperity flee as from a disease when misfortune strikes your life. It is tough to see the loyalty upon which you would have staked your life shatter at the first real test. And it is heavy on the heart to know that the fire of a friendship has died out and turned cold at the whims of betrayal.
But despite all of this, friend, I dare you to choose not to let ungrateful actions spoil you. Do not allow lies and treachery to poison and undermine your reputation. Don’t let the sting of ingratitude transform you into a resentful man who can no longer share his sympathy and kindness.
Do not lose FAITH IN HUMANITY
Be strong enough to swallow the pain of ingratitude, smile quietly and fearlessly seek to forget. In justice to yourself, you should not permit the wrongdoings of a few to make you lose faith in humanity. If you allow that to happen, you will transform yourself into a pessimist who mistakes his own introspection for reality. And in your broken heart, you will believe that through your bad experiences, you see the world.
If you withdraw confidence in humanity from your heart, you will become but a selfish narcissist, thinking of yourself as the only truly good individual left. You will put every bit of effort into your petty grudge against the world. And all of this just because a few whom you have helped and served have been ungrateful.
CHANGE YOUR PERSPECTIVE
If you ever find yourself facing injustice and ingratitude, friend, dare to step away from your ego for a brief moment and look at things from a different perspective.
Suppose you receive a bad breakfast. Such an unpleasant memory won’t make you abandon eating. Or suppose you get caught in the rain. You will not refuse to ever interact with water. Just as you carry the hope of a better meal and the longing for better weather, do not expect every seed of kindness that you share with others to grow into something positive. Refuse to judge the whole world unjustly because of the injustice of some idiots.
Remember that if you remain an unselfish, kind and charitable person, many will try to exploit those honourable traits. To recognise, fight and overcome ingratitude, you must first understand the process by which ingratitude is shaped.
HOW INGRATITUDE IS EXPRESSED?
Initially, you will observe a simple action of thanklessness from someone you have helped. You notice a missing thank you for some great effort that you provided without any obligation to do so. Maybe you have helped someone financially. Maybe you got out of your way to be by their side in times of trouble. All of this without ever existing a single moment of simple recognition for what you have done.
The second phase of ingratitude is denial. That moment when the person you were helpful and loyal to will care more about their selfish desires. That moment when he will forget his friendship or connection with you. The point when he will refuse to see how your helpful actions were the elements that have helped him. At that point, he will justify his lack of acknowledgement with phrases like “No one asked you to do that”.
The last level of ingratitude is treachery. A stage when such a person’s selfishness grows ruthless. You will suffer the sting of betrayal through the greediness, jealousy and ingratitude of the one to whom you gave all your being.
HOW TO BUILD GRATITUDE?
Understand this process, friend. Dare to rise above dependence on human gratitude, or you will not be able to do anything great in life. Do not become the man who is weakened in his well-doing by the ingratitude of others. Refuse to do good deeds for the sake of a reward. Reject the idea that your kindness and goodness are moral traits that should be held only as long as they come with appreciation.
The essence of goodness always lies in the grace with which people perform it. Forget the good deeds you have done by making them seem small in comparison with the great things that you are doing and the even greater things you hope to do. This is true generosity. Generosity that will help develop gratitude in the soul of a man who has been helped. Unless such a man is so petrified by selfishness as to make it impossible.
CONTINUE TO DO GOOD
Never remind anyone of the favours they have received. Dare to throw such statistics out the window and embrace the good fortune you enjoy to serve someone else. Do not let your ignorance of human nature blind you. Understand that sometimes a man’s heart is so full of thankfulness that he cannot speak in the very intensity of his appreciation.
Sometimes, the consciousness of his inability to repay your good deeds develops a strange determination to say nothing until the opportunity to show his genuine gratitude will enable him to make it a reality.
Don’t bitter your soul, friend, with the poison of the ones who make you feel like a small, inferior insect, while at the same time having no problem accepting any favour from you. Simply do not grant them the right of future kindness.
No act of goodness ever dies. Every good deed that you do will trigger some other good deed in the world, even if you may not know it. It will come back to you in some form as naturally and as inevitably as echo answers any sound. It may not come as you expect it, it may not be how you expect it, but sometimes, somehow, somewhere it will come back to you.
FIGHT INGRATITUDE
I dare you to understand ingratitude, to learn how to recognise it, and fight it back by refusing to give in to it. Observe the awful cowardice and injustice of it. Do not pay too much attention to it. Banish it forever from your existence by making every hour of your life a radiation of your generous and honest heart.
When you will pour every drop of compassion from your heart, when you will spend every ounce of effort from your body to serve a good cause, will you be shattered by the ingratitude of a few or will you remain a beacon of trust, honor and kindness in spite of them?
Your choice will impact not only you!
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