In both instances, I was grateful and appreciative, but I wasn't surprised.
Not that there's any lack of substance to comedy, but — for instance — I'm grateful that, from Cary Grant, we have both "Bringing Up Baby" and "Notorious".
Card (1988), for instance, writes that grateful beliefs or feelings toward someone who has not earned them might be a mark of servility, or a lack of self-respect, on the part of the beneficiary who has them.
We use such terms in a broad range of circumstances: it sounds natural to say, for instance, "I am grateful that it did not rain on my wedding day;" "grateful someone happened to walk by as I was being mugged;" "grateful to someone for trying unsuccessfully to help me;" "grateful for someone's well-wishes".
Try to come up with three things or instances that make you feel grateful.
Record instances that occur in your life that you are grateful for.
The book of Tobit, for instance, turns largely on the widespread motifs of the "grateful dead" and the demon in the bridal chamber.
"Every morning that I can put my feet on the floor I am grateful, because for many months and in many instances, even that wasn't possible".
Insofar as philosophers are interested in analyzing gratitude proper, without having their analyses contaminated by such cases of mere or bare appreciation, they should focus their attention on all and only instances of the essentially interpersonal kind of gratitude instances where a beneficiary is grateful to a benefactor for something she did.
In doing so, I began to feel serene, focused, and even grateful for all it enables me to do — for instance, writing this essay.
