Three Levels of Gratitude Beyond Saying Thank You

8 Oct 2026 · 1 min

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In this brief motivational talk, Dr. Ed Tori explains that simple gratitude—feeling thankful—is insufficient for nurturing relationships. He outlines three progressive stages: (1) passive gratitude, where one merely experiences thankfulness internally; (2) expressed gratitude, where one verbally says “thank you”; and (3) active appreciation, which involves consciously maintaining, improving, and fully engaging with the person or thing one is grateful for. He urges listeners to move beyond taking loved ones for granted and instead treat them as borrowed, actively appreciating them in the present moment.

Chapters

It's not a reason to beat yourself up. It's just every once in a while, it might be worth actively looking into being grateful for them and not leaving it at gratitude because gratitude is not enough. Gratitude is not enough. I can experience gratitude all by myself. I can be grateful for my wife and my relationship with my wife or my relationship with my kids or whatever. I can be grateful for that without taking any action. I can just experience gratitude. The next level might be expressing gratitude, saying thank you. But there's another level. The other level is to actively appreciate it, to actively maintain it, to actively improve it, to see it for what it is, to hear it, to experience it, to be with it in the moment. Think about someone in your life right now, someone that you may be taking for granted, and rather than taking them for granted, take them for borrowed.