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By: Jack Moseley
The Orange
By Wendy Cope
At lunchtime I bought a huge orange
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave
They got quarters and I had a half.
And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It’s new.
The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I’m glad I exist.
While we chase fulfillment, happiness often slips through our fingers, hiding where we least expect it—in the mundane, the ordinary, in an orange shared at lunch time. We live in an age of unparalleled opportunity, a time where anyone can do anything they dream of—and yet many of us aren’t satisfied.
Everyone is familiar with the feeling that their life isn’t as it should be. Maybe you aren't competitive enough; you aren't as smart as you should be; your relationships are strained; you can't find what you're looking for…if you are like most people, there is a gap between the person you are, and the person you want to be. This can morph into a chronic sense of discontent, one that causes you to look outwards with envy, and inwards with disappointment.
But this chronic dissatisfaction is more than just a personal feeling—it’s a cultural phenomenon. Finding fulfillment in modern life is a sort of paradox–we are forced to navigate a complex web of expectations and desires. Many of these thoughts are self-imposed, but many come from an outside source: pop culture, social media, and corporate advertising all exacerbate these problems. As soon as you open your phone, you are bombarded with the lives of perfect people: everyone is able to find success, have an idyllic love-life, travel the world, and have an exhilarating social life…all with relative ease.
Social media has been around for decades now, and we’re all well aware of its insidious effects. Plenty of people have claimed to find the solution to these problems (generally in a series of hashtags followed by self-help buzzwords) but yet the wound in our society persits, festering with unprecedented levels of loneliness, anxiety, and inadequacy.
We’re unlikely to find a cure-all to solve this crisis. There is no magical elixir through which we can heal our collective wound. With that said, I would argue that the best way forward is a simple one: gratitude.
Gratitude is about being thankful for what we have. That may be as simple as an orange shared with friends, or it may be as vital as a roof over our heads—but at all levels, gratitude is
an indispensable tool. It encourages us to focus on what we have, instead of what we lack. This doesn’t mean ignoring our ambitions or desires, but rather to recognize the value of the journey of life; the small victories that make life worth living.
Gratitude is a fundamentally unique emotion. While empathy and sympathy can be understood as a response to the distress of another person, and shame and guilt as responses to one’s inability to meet moral standards, gratitude is the pleasant response of thankfulness to an outside agent after recognizing benefits received1. Gratitude is inherently transactional. It arises when you acknowledge good in your life resulting from the actions of specific individuals (or a divine force, should you have faith in one) which you would not enjoy otherwise.
Many studies throughout the past decade indicate that those who consciously count their blessings are happier, and less likely to be depressed. Gratitude has recently been used as a psychotherapeutic intervention2, with incredible results. It has been shown to aid those suffering from hypertension, stress, and even improve outcomes for those with cancer.
The key here is to understand that to see improvement you must consciously practice gratitude in your day-to-day life. For some, journaling is useful; for others, verbalizing their gratitude is better; some people simply reflect on it in thought. Gratitude is something you actively practice—it isn’t just a feeling you experience.
Gratitude can be used as a crucial anchor in our lives—a way to remember what we should be thankful for. It’s astonishingly easy to be consumed by envy, to look at our lives and only feel regret and disappointment. Let us cultivate gratitude as a garden in our hearts, sowing the seeds of thankfulness in every step—committing to watering those seeds with the recognition of the good in our lives, and nurturing them with the light of mindfulness. With time, let us enjoy the fruits of contentment, and share them with our peers.
Jack, of Glasgow, Ky., is a member of the McConnell Scholar Class of 2025 at the University of Louisville where he studies neuroscience and political science.
1 Emmons, R. A., Froh, J., & Rose, R. (2019). Gratitude. In M. W. Gallagher & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Positive psychological assessment: A handbook of models and measures (2nd ed., pp. 317–332). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000138-020
2 Emmons R. A., Stern R. (2013). Gratitude as a psychotherapeutic intervention. J Clin Psychol. Aug;69(8):846-55. doi: 10.1002/jclp.22020. Epub 2013 Jun 17. PMID: 23775470.