By Sister Maria Lai, CSJ
Once someone told me these stories:
A hiker once lost his way as he hiked in the Sierras. He used all his navigation gadgets, but neither did he find his way back nor could he find any food to eat for three days. He lost all hope. He thought he would die of hunger. It was at that moment, his eyes caught sight of a coconut. The man was so happy. He collected ten coconuts for the rest of his journey.
As he ate the first coconut, his joy had no bounds. He could not stop feeling grateful and blessed. He thanked life. He thanked God. He was very happy. He thought he was the luckiest man! But he was less grateful while having the second coconut and even less grateful when he had the fifth coconut. Somehow with each coconut, the joy kept on reducing drastically. He just could not enjoy the seventh coconut. This man even threw the remaining coconuts away and started to complain. In such a short time, he had already taken for granted the gift of having found these coconuts when he had been starving for three days.
In economics, this Tenth Coconut Effect is called the law of diminishing marginal utility. It is actually the law of diminishing gratitude -- in other words, “taking things for granted.”
The Tenth Coconut Effect is our lack of appreciation for the gifts of life. The hiker represents all ofus. The coconut represents the gifts that life gives us. The tenth coconut is as nutritious as the first coconut. If the tenth coconut fails to give this man as much pleasure as the first one, there is nothing wrong with the coconut but with the person who fails to enjoy the fruit.
Before this Coronavirus, we already experienced the Tenth Coconut Effect in our world. We had abundance of everything, and we still complained. We complained about people, job, government, traffic, food, weather, too much homework, too many tests, too many people living in the dorm – everything we could think of. Right now, during this lock down, I am sure that most of us began appreciating lots of things in life which we took for granted, even small things like, “Oh, it is so nice to be with family,” or “I am so glad that we got vegetables today,” or “... thank you, God, for my health.” We might not have had these same thoughts in our minds two months back.
The present situation is shaking us and showing us that we are dependent on something bigger than what we think, and we have to be grateful for all the blessings. We started appreciating our abundance of freedom and gifts – Burns Recreation Center, even the food from the Lair Marketplace on LMU campus, “the good old days,” and now we are realizing that we were taking them for granted.
Right now, all of us have two choices. Be grateful or be stressful. It is a choice!
An eighty-six-year-old woman dying from coronavirus in the hospital was told to pray for the ventilator for one day, and the old woman started to cry. The doctor advised her not to cry over the bill; they would manage it. But what the old woman said made all the doctors cry. The old woman said, “I am not crying because of the money that I have to pay. I cry because I have been breathing God’s air for eighty-six years and I have never paid for it. Now it takes $5,000 to use the ventilator for a day.”
When we change the way we look at things, these things change our lives. Gratitude is a strong and powerful emotion. Sometimes we have to bring more awareness and be more grateful for the gifts in life. Be aware of our state of mind and start counting our blessings. Thank you is the best prayer we can chant all day long. Don’t let the Tenth Coconut Effect make us take gifts in life for granted. Never let our gratitude for life fade away in front of our eyes.
Question for reflection: How would you like to practice gratefulness a little more as you keep your social distancing?