In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I recently purchased Margaret Visser’s latest book, “The Gift of Thanks: The Roots and Rituals of Gratitude.”  Anticipating this would be a light and educational read about Thanksgiving and its traditions, I was pleasantly surprised. The book was filled with so much more. Visser explores virtually everything one could ever imagine in relation to gratitude and thanks.  Margaret’s book is an examination of what gratitude is and how it functions in our lives. “Gratitude is a moral emotion of sorts,” explains Visser, “one that is more complicated and more vital than we think.”

In “The Gift of Thanks,” Visser acknowledges that simple politeness is the grease that keeps society running.  She also believes being grateful is not natural but, rather a learned behavior.  Visser writes about the humility required to be genuinely grateful and carefully details the kind of gratitude that is not compulsory or self-interested.

“Gratitude is always a matter of paying attention,” Margaret writes, “it’s deliberately beholding and appreciating the other.”  She admits that gratitude is fundamentally, about not taking things for granted. “Gratitude arises from a specific circumstance – being given a gift or done a favor – but, depends less upon that, than on the receiver’s whole life, her character, upbringing, maturity, experience, relationships with others, and also on her ideals, including her idea of the sort of person she is or would like to be,” exclaims Visser.

This was a timely and influential book and I am “grateful” to have read it.