Expectation is the culprit – let go!
Try to sit down and make two lists. Let one be of all the things that you have and one of all the things that you don't have. The first list should include every single thing that you have, starting from your eyes, ears, hands and legs, because there are people who don't have some of these. Include all your physical and mental faculties before moving to material things. If you write very sincerely without leaving out anything, you will not be able to complete the first list! That is the truth. If you find you are unable to finish the first list, it means gratitude has started happening in you!
The problem is that there is a continuous expectation in us all the time. That is why gratitude doesn't happen easily. Working with expectation is like pouring clarified butter into the fire to quench it. Can you quench fire by pouring clarified butter into it? Never! In the same way, you can never feel fulfilled if your actions are rooted in expectation. You will only tire your senses.
You can live either in expectation or in gratitude, never in both. With expectation there is a desire to possess things. You become the owner. With gratitude, you become the enjoyer. When you are the owner you enjoy only the few things that you own. When you are the enjoyer, you enjoy everything in Existence. When you look to own, nothing will seem enough. When you enjoy, everything seems to be overflowing! That is the difference.
A small story:
In a village, the night guard was on his rounds blowing his whistle periodically.
He had an earthen pipe that he smoked. He filled it with tobacco and searched for a match box. He didn't have one.
He went to the nearby hut where an old lady lived and asked if she could give him some ember from her oven. The old lady said her stove had not been lit for the past three days and that she herself was managing with the little food they gave in the temple.
He tried in several places but it was of no use. He finally went to the village chief's house and asked the maids for fire to light his pipe.
One of the girls looked at him and asked, 'Fire to light your pipe? Why not use the lantern you are carrying?'
The guard couldn't believe his eyes. He had been carrying a lantern all along while searching for a matchbox!
When we believe that what we need is always only outside of us, we live in eternal expectation and we will continue searching like the night guard! When we believe that Existence always gives us what we need, we will find everything within us all the time.
When we work with expectation all the time, we carry a subtle violence in our body language; not deliberate violence, but inherent violence. If we become a little sensitive to our body language, we will be able to catch this.
Watch yourself when you type on the computer, when you handle phone calls, how you place the phone receiver back in its cradle, with what aggression you walk … everything. You will see that everything carries a subtle violence in it.
With gratitude, your entire body language changes. When you start experiencing deep gratitude, your responses to situations change. You start resonating with Existence. Your body will flow with that resonance, with a cool grace and softness. All your actions will arise out of this grace. There will be no violence.
Only joy will be flowing. Then anything you do will only make life sweeter.