Sir, – Padraig O'Morain cites modern psychology for the benefits to be gained by accepting gratitude into our lives ("Be thankful for what you have and your heart will thanks you", Health + Family, April 28th). But to promote gratitude today for its personal health benefits is to support a way of life and culture that works to promote ingratitude in the first place. This is because orienting our life to what is personal and not public is anathema to the development of gratitude in our lives. This ingratitude is but a symptom of the sickness of our age and is the dominant mood of our civilisation reflective in our modern "'self"-obsessed understanding of our world.
This loss of gratitude for the world we live in now has been lost due to the privileging of the personal, autonomous life over a life lived publicly with others.
To live a life where gratitude is at its core is to live a life which accepts that our lives are inextricably linked to others. This is to accept that our actions are dependent on many others – some present others not. Gratitude also arises from an acceptance that what matters is already provided to us.
This is our lost inheritance from the ancient Greek world – where gratitude was central to the experience of life and where the best life is one that is capable of living in accord with it.
For the Greeks, humans are at their best when they act not for themselves but in ways that acknowledge the influence of others. Homer, for example, states that the worst of humanity were those described as lacking in gratitude. Thus in the Odyssey, we see Homer despising the suitors for their lack of gratitude to the gods: "cold-hearted men, who never spare a thought for how they stand in the sight of Zeus". – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL BYRNE,
Templemore,
Co Tipperary.