Why gratitude is not optional
Other animals live. They forage, fight, mate, rest, repeat. Their lives are not without beauty, but they move by instinct. They do not stop to say, I am alive — how astonishing.
We do. Or at least, we can.
As human beings, we carry a peculiar burden and a singular gift.
The burden is volition: we must choose to live. We can drift, we can despair, we can even decide not to carry on.
But the gift is appreciation: we can pause, look around, and see that life itself is worth choosing.
The Strange Power of Gratitude
Gratitude is more than manners or saying thank you. It is a lens that reveals the miracle of being. It lets us see existence as gratuitous — not owed to us, not guaranteed, not permanent — and therefore precious.
Think of the sheer strangeness: you are conscious. You get to breathe, remember, imagine, laugh, ache, wonder. Out of all the trillions of possible beings who will never walk the earth, you got a turn. Gratitude takes that fact and lights it up, so we can feel the luck of being here.
Without that recognition, life flattens. Days become chores. Time becomes a treadmill. With it, life brightens — not because circumstances change, but because perspective does.
Appreciation as Incentive
Because we are volitional, we must supply ourselves with reasons to live. Appreciation does this. It makes life lovable, which makes life livable.
To want to live, we need to value life. And to value life, we must notice its gifts. Not in some abstract way, but in the daily particulars: the taste of coffee, the unique shape of a friend’s smile, the feel of wind across your face.
These moments do not erase suffering. But they give suffering context. They whisper, Yes, it hurts, but it is still worth it. Look — you are alive, and that is a treasure.
A Scene of Awakening
Picture yourself walking on a rainy afternoon, shoulders hunched, mind tangled with worries. You look down and see a puddle. For no reason, you pause. In its surface, clouds swirl like silver ink. The reflection stirs you — ordinary water holding a piece of the sky.
Nothing in your circumstances changed. Yet suddenly you feel it: the world holds things, and those things are gratuitous, excessive, overflowing. You smile, not at the puddle exactly, but at the reminder that you are here to see it.
That is the human gift of appreciation.
Mortality’s Underscore
One day you will no longer be here. The rain will still fall, the clouds will still drift, but you will not see them. That fact does not diminish the beauty — it amplifies it. The brevity of life turns every glimpse into a miracle.
Mortality sharpens appreciation. It reminds us that our chance is limited, which makes every ordinary moment extraordinary.
Closing Thought
To be human is to be more than alive. It is to be aware of being alive — and to treasure that awareness.
Other creatures move through existence. We get to savor it. That is our gift, and also our responsibility. Because without appreciation, life is just survival. With it, life is art—and the art exists for us, for our savoring, while we have this rare and glorious chance to do so.
For more like this, visit the broader project at life-savor.com, or explore the Life Savor book itself.
To learn more about Life Savor’s philosophy,
read Life Savor: Treasuring Our Gift of Life by Erik Victor Reed.
