Letting Gratitude Sing like the Song Birds

Since we collectively gain so much more than any one of us pays into society to provide for the comforts, safety, and enjoyment we benefit from the unsung efforts of so many people, when we’re grateful for their hidden contributions it somehow sings in our souls.

I’m absolutely blown away by bird migrations. I love seeing the migratory birds returning back up North this time of the year. Take the Arctic Turn for example. They travel practical from one pole to the other twice a year or roughly 55,000 miles per year. And according to Bird Life International, since they can live up to 30 years, their migration patterns can mean traveling the same distance to the moon and back three times in their lifetimes or almost 1.5 million miles or over 57 times around the Earth!

So many other migratory birds make remarkable attempts to follow their instincts and their chemical triggers to pass on their genetic code for future generations. It’s so easy to anthropomorphize the valiant attempts of protecting their single eggs when watching documentaries like the March of the Penguins because their work ethic and sacrifice reaches heroic levels. I don’t know what feelings or emotions drive these amazing animals to do their remarkable feats. The scientific debate is very murky at best still on how or whether animals feel emotions in any analogous way to how humans to. But there are so many poignant lessons that we can draw from the examples set by the animal kingdom.

The thing that has struck me most this spring as I’ve seen house finches, larks, and warblers coming back from their distant travels is how little notice and predication I give to the bird songs that often wake me up in the mornings. Is there any more pleasant alarm clock then bird song at sunrise? It’s so easy to completely overlook the extraordinary efforts the birds that sing in our backyards had to take on in order to be there in our neighborhood.

It’s so easy to just assume that that the sparrows and robins will return year after year because that’s nature’s way and we don’t have to do anything to make it happen. They just show up in the spring. But with things that can bring satisfaction, comfort, and joy to us that we don’t do anything to earn or deserve, we don’t need to intercede exactly. I guess we could support an organization that assists migratory birds. But it’s not like any one of us will be able to teach a whole species a better way of migrating. But we can certainly be grateful for these unearned gifts. Nature provides so many of these that are so easy to overlook. The beautiful sunset, a cool breeze during our morning jog. A rainbow piecing a gray sky. Watching a tree seedling grow.

But there are so many examples of our own species’ interdependence. Remember two years ago when toilet paper and hand sanitizer became hard time find and grocery store shelves became unusually bare of items we take as a given will be there any time we need them? It’s incredible to think of the hundreds of people whose efforts go into producing those products that end up on grocery store shelves that most of the time get no attention or credit for their work. So many others: the public works people to clean our gutters and plow our streets and pick up our garbage every week. The podcast creators or radio producers who create entertaining content for us that can transform a otherwise dreary commute to work into an engaging experience. The public artist who beautify our city parks. There are so many more examples. Modern society relies on these people showing up to do their jobs and our lives are made better every day because they do.

And although we can say that they get paid to do their jobs, we don’t directly pay their salaries. We might contributed a tiny fraction of their pay by buying products or paying taxes, but collectively, we gain so much more than any one of us pays into society to provide for these benefits that make our lives so much more comfortable, safe, and enjoyable. And just like the migratory birds, we don’t have to contribute more than what we already are, but I think there’s something soul-enriching in recognize and being grateful for the effort. So maybe the next time we go to the grocery store, we can smile a genuine smile and say a little thank you to the clerk you see stocking a shelf or the next time we’re out taking our walk in our neighborhood park, we could wave at the landscaping crews. It doesn’t cost us anything to be grateful and we might be surprised at how enriching it can be to send that gratitude out into the world.