Right after arriving at Auschwitz, Edith and her mother and sister were waiting in the selection line. They didn’t know it, but this would be their last moment together. While Edith and her sister Magda were sent to the left, their mother was sent to the right.
When Edith, just sixteen, entered the camp and asked where her mother was, one of the women dressed in striped dresses pointed to the smoke rising up from one of the chimneys in the distance. “Your mother is burning there,” she said. “You better start talking about her in the past tense.”
When the Nazi concentration camps were liberated, Edith was found under a pile of dead bodies. Although she survived, almost everyone she knew and loved had been killed. That really hit me, and even more because when she experienced that, and I read her book, we were about the same age. It made me reflect a lot on everything that I had.
I had never been very grateful. As a driven person, I always focused on what I didn’t have. Forget anything that means slowing down, I thought, because it’s an obstacle to getting more done. I never liked gratitude. I believed that being healthy or having family and friends were things I was supposed to have, as if they belonged to me. I was wrong.
What happened to Edith opened my eyes to the fact that everything you have could disappear at any moment. I realized I took many things for granted, and I felt regret. What if I lost a loved one, or became terribly ill? Appreciating something only after losing it is terrible, and I felt shame. I needed to learn to appreciate what I had, so I became interested in developing a gratitude practice.
Practicing gratitude is an ongoing process that requires daily work, but it is worth it. Shortly after arriving at Auschwitz, Edith understood, for the first time in her life, that she had a choice: to pay attention to what she lost or to pay attention to what she still had. Gratitude is also a choice, and I decided to practice gratitude every day. After several years, here’s what I learned.
Gratitude has improved my interpersonal relationships, especially with family and friends. That you have them shouldn’t be considered as something ordinary, but rather exceptional. Feeling grateful has motivated me to treat them with love and kindness and to try to help them when needed. It doesn’t have to be something extraordinary; small details are enough to make a difference. Gratitude has also made spending time with my loved ones, especially family, much more enjoyable and meaningful. And this is priceless.
It has also changed my relationship with myself. There are several ways to practice gratitude; one is to visualize losing what you have. I like memento mori, an ancient practice of reflecting on your mortality. It sounds scary, but I believe awareness of death can improve your life.
For example, now I’m more conscious that my time is limited, so I treat it as a gift. Once you realize how valuable time is, not wasting it becomes easier. Another consequence of memento mori is that I live more with a sense of urgency. Reflecting on your mortality also helps you to distinguish between what is important and not, and living a more fulfilling life is easier when you can focus on what truly matters. And finally, because you always have in mind that your life will end one day, you are more likely to live with more meaning and purpose. As Confucius said, “Every man has two lives, and the second starts when he realizes he has just one.”
I like to see my life as a candle that could go out at any moment. I carefully hold it in my hands. It’s fragile. And I look at it with amazement. Gratitude has shown me it’s a gift. After all, being alive is truly a miracle. One day, the candle will go out, but until then, I want its flame to shine as brightly as possible.