How to express your gratitude?

As a child, I was the type of boy who was embarrassed to say thank you. Well, you remember this: “What should I say to my aunt?” I didn’t say, for the life of me. And he went for the ungrateful, at best for the stubborn. Only the most intelligent sometimes remarked shrewdly: “Leave him alone. He is shy. It happens to boys.» To such aunts I felt a gratitude that had no end and which there is no way to express. Immeasurable gratitude. But for everyone it remained a mystery.

I may have been the most grateful child in the world, but no one ever found out about it. Parents in general, no matter how insulting it may seem, often evaluate the child only by external manifestations. They (that is, we) are terribly etiquette people. «By the rules» is more important than «from the heart.» Not always, of course, but almost always «look» is very important.

Then I thought a lot: what explains my childish stubbornness or, there, shyness? Post factum, we become really attentive to ourselves and always encounter what can be called a revelation.

The sticky candy taken out of his pocket was not worth a thank you, just as the giver’s gesture was worth nothing. Later in life there will be many such indifferent gestures of help or giving. Of course, we learn to say “thank you” over the years, but we don’t feel any special gratitude at the same time.

Another thing is an act dictated by spiritual disposition or participation. It can be insignificant help (to take a dog or water flowers for yourself during the trip), it can also be significant material assistance, but not because it will not decrease from the giver, but from spiritual generosity and compassion to the one in trouble. The size and complexity of the help are not so important, sincerity and mercy are more important. And we always feel this unmistakably. Thanks, of course, but still gratitude in the form of this duty word upsets with its disproportion to the reciprocal feeling.

Marina Tsvetaeva has several pages of gratitude notes in her notebooks. They begin with a cute and funny episode: “When the five-year-old Mozart, having just run away from the harpsichord, stretched out on the slippery palace parquet and the seven-year-old Marie Antoinette, the only one of all, rushed to him and picked him up, he said:“ I will marry her «, and, when Marie-Therese asked him why, — «Out of gratitude.»

I am sure that children, without exception, are grateful beings. The question is: how long does a growing child, or simply speaking, an adult, retain this feeling of gratitude and does it somehow affect his actions? After the episode with little Mozart, Tsvetaeva bitterly notes that when little Marie Antoinette became the Queen of France and she was transported to the scaffold on a cart, no one shouted out of gratitude: “Long live the queen!”

Let me note, by the way, that the surrogate for the feeling of gratitude is the law “you give me — I give you”. They are equally used by ordinary people and, as they say, decent, and criminal subjects. If this is not a criminal bail, then there is nothing wrong with such a custom. Just mutual assistance and a certain guarantee of reliability. This is also called «I owe him.» Well, I must, repaid kindness for kindness. It has nothing to do with gratitude.

Gratitude not only does not need external forms of expression, but practically does not have them. The feeling is purely internal, and it can manifest itself unexpectedly, after, perhaps, years. Or not appear at all, but simply color the relationship. The best form of its manifestation is the presence of nobility in one’s own behavior, since a person once accepted as a norm a noble attitude towards him from another.

If we are talking about a guarantee, then this is a guarantee of nobility and compassion, love, if you like. In the same notebook of Tsvetaeva: “I am never grateful to people for deeds — only for essences! The bread given to me may turn out to be an accident, a dream seen about me is always an essence.

It’s true. For the rest of your life, you can save gratitude for a sympathetic look, a timely spoken word of support, saving intercession, faith in you that is not outwardly dictated by anything, or simple approval. I remember that at one meeting, where I was almost unanimously accused of what an imperfect act, a man stood up, respected by everyone, even loved, and said: “This is not true.” They shouted to him: «Facts!» “I have no facts,” he replied, “but if my word means something to you, then I say: it’s not true. He couldn’t do that.»

His word meant a lot. Sanctions against me were temporarily refrained from. And after a while, the true culprit was discovered. But at that moment this man not only saved me, he believed in me. Need I say how grateful I was to him? But how to express this gratitude? Say thanks»? Only?