Generally we express gratitude to either God or another person when good things happen in our life. Examples are when we get a promotion or our child passes the exam with flying colors, or we get over illness and our ushered into good health.
But many times when bad things happen to us we end up criticizing and blaming others for our misfortune. We also blame God and scold him for inflicting this painful situation and suffering on us. What we fail to understand is that instead of feeling depressed at our failures if we look at the life lesson that a particular situation gives us and express gratitude at our failures such gratitude is total gratitude. Total gratitude is the gratitude expressed to God or other people for both our successes and failures. God is not here to punish us. The purpose of God is to create this universe for delight. If we become one with God’s purpose for us and the world we would have total gratitude.
Total gratitude is absence of regret or sadness with respect to a particular result. We have to accept all outcomes in life cheerfully.
Total gratitude comes from total acceptance of our life situation whether good or bad.
Saraswathi.org 