This essay invites us to consider whether we are sick from loneliness or from not belonging and how gratefulness offers a remedy.

Source: Radical Belonging in an Age of Othering – Grateful.org

A grateful orientation to life is in opposition to othering. Rather than unifying around exclusions, a practice of grateful living challenges us to seek, observe, and understand (Stop. Look. Go) the many ways in which we are never fully alone, never independent or separate from others. The practice of grateful living helps us address the origin of our societal ailments because it illuminates our interconnectedness by focusing on and acknowledging the details of every lived moment and the network of people required to sustain our lives. This perspective understands that when we lose sight of our inter-relationality we can trust that everything will quickly go sideways, making us sick with fear, greed, violence, exploitation, loneliness, despair, and war. These and other detriments to our well-being fill the enormous cavern where belonging should live and thrive